


At the End of the Summer

by Jordan_Marine



Category: Shadow of the Fox Series - Julie Kagawa
Genre: (No One Wants Therapy), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Child Neglect, Daisuke does fight clubs, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Foster Care, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Okame is a disaster, Reika deserves a nap, Tatsumi is horrible at communication, Therapy, Yumeko is a treasure, everyone gets therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:00:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24780466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jordan_Marine/pseuds/Jordan_Marine
Summary: Ten weeks. Thirty hours. Four teenagers who don't want to be there. One Grad Student who needs to complete her internship. This can only end well.Or, the squad meets in a support group for foster kids.
Relationships: The Shadow of the Fox Gang, Tsuki Yumeko & Kage Tatsumi & Hino Okame & Taiyo Daisuke & Reika
Comments: 43
Kudos: 23





	1. Session 1, Chapter 1: Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> I have written for Talon, I have written for Blood of Eden, so this was really inevitable.
> 
> So while COVID happened, I finally read Shadow of the Fox, cried about it, thought of this idea, decided that since I can't actually go to therapy myself, I can let Julie's characters have some, because they so desperately need it. I mean, look at them. They deserve nice things. Like therapy. And French Fries.
> 
> Note: I am an American, will be using the American foster system as reference, and therefore have them placed in 'Vague American Location'. Because of this, I'm doing Given Name, Family Name rather than Family Name, Given Name.

“So how many groups are you managing?”

“Only six, four or five kids each,” Mr. Jiro responded. “And I’m just organizing and keeping everyone’s files in order. You interns get the real work.”

“We really do,” Reika muttered, looking over the information sheets she had gotten about her four… patients? Patients felt demeaning, even if she  _ was  _ supposed to be their counsellor. Mr. Jiro said that she was going to be taking the lead on these sessions that, from what she could tell, no one particularly wanted to go to. To be fair, no one ever wanted to go to group therapy, let alone four teenagers who had no idea who anyone else was. She distinctly remembered one of her foster siblings loudly complaining about having to go and being incredibly sympathetic.

_ Well, how the tables have turned. _

“I liked my case manager, when I was in the system,” Reika said. Mr. Jiro nodded. “But almost every other kid I met hated theirs. Especially the older ones.” She looked back down at her notes. “You know, I want my MSW, but I was hoping my internship would cover younger kids. Younger kids are at least up-front when they hate you, even if they  _ do  _ bite.”

“Ah, but you rarely get to choose which kids need your aid. This will be good for you.”

Reika looked over the kid’s files again and tried to resign herself that literally none of them wanted to be there. That was okay. They didn’t have to  _ want  _ to be there, they just had to participate. Reika hadn’t wanted to go to that weekly leadership seminar last year, but she still learned things at nine o’clock, eating stale bagels and drinking black coffee. She could do this. It was only ten weeks.

She had ten weeks of three-hour sessions to make progress with four teenagers who were probably coming in prepared to hate her.

“Positive attitude, Reika,” Mr. Jiro said softly.

“Right. Positivity,” she nodded. She poured a cup of tea from the snack tray. Nothing was expected to even  _ happen  _ this week. No one would be bearing their soul to her. They’d just be getting to know everyone. She didn’t need to be a miracle worker.

“You know, my therapist’s office had a couch,” she noted.

“Well… no one funds CPS.”

Someone loudly cleared their throat behind them. Reika turned around and saw a girl standing in the doorway, looking at the two of them apprehensively. She looked around fifteen, with long black hair that had half-undone braids sticking out of them, wearing a bright red shirt and high-waisted jeans with dirt stains on the knees.

“Yumeko Tsuki, I believe?” Reika said with a smile. 

“That’s me,” she responded. “Uh… this is support group, right? For foster kids. Oh god, am I early?”

“You do appear to the first person here,” Reika responded. “You can call me Reika, and that’s Mr. Jiro. Feel free to take snacks as we wait for everyone else to show up.”

Yumeko nodded and sat down at the table. The community center wasn’t one of the homeliest environments, but they had gotten a small room and done their best to make it appear welcoming. Reika sat down across from Yumeko. Mr. Isao sat in the one padded chair in the corner, observing.

_ No pressure, or anything. _

Seriously, who’s idea was it to let the intern take the lead in a support group?

About two minutes of awkward silence later, someone else came in and looked around, his face set into a neutral expression. He was wearing a black turtleneck and jeans even though it was June, and had his hands stuffed into his pockets.

“Hi. I’m Tatsumi,” he said tonelessly. He walked over to the table and sat next to Yumeko, pouring himself a cup of tea.

“Hi, Tatsumi!” Yumeko smiled. “I’m Yumeko.”

“Okay, then.”

“ _ Tatsumi?” _

Reika jerked back towards the door, where another kid was standing, staring indignantly. Tatsumi turned around, too.

“Okame,” he greeted, still toneless. “You’re still in the system, then. I didn’t see you after your caseworker picked you up.”

“Yeah, they sent me to a boarding school. You can guess how well that went,” he said, plopping down. He grinned widely at Yumeko. “I’m Okame Hino. It’ll be nice getting to know everyone in fuck-up support group.”

Reika had read everyone’s bios and already known that Okame would be a difficult one, but this confirmed it. Out of the three of them, he looked the most like a stereotypical member of the system, with a ratty hoodie and tangled hair, pulled into a low ponytail. He smelled like alcohol, too. She desperately hoped he wouldn’t show up drunk to their meetings.

“Please refrain from calling it  _ fuckup support group, _ ” she said, extending her hand. He rolled his eyes, but took it for a shake. “I’m Reika, your counsellor. I’m excited to meet you. This isn’t for fuck ups, but for foster children who can use some extra guidance. Try to keep an open mind.”

“She means fuck-ups,” Okame stage whispered to Yumeko.

“I don’t think so. I just have things that I want to work on, and my foster dad recommended this place,” Yumeko responded. “How do you two know each other?”

“We were in the same foster family for two weeks,” Tatsumi responded.

“And then I got kicked out. I think that was a record for placements that are supposed to be long term,” Okame said. “Do you still live there?”

“No.”

“Good. They seemed like assholes.”

“You didn’t exactly stick around to find out.”

Okame shrugged and dragged the snack tray closer to him. He snagged a muffin and let the table settle back into silence. 

“How many people are coming?” Yumeko asked.

“Just one more,” Reika responded. “While we wait, I’ll ask that you all sign the sign-in sheet, so we can prove that you attended. We’ll give Daisuke until five past twelve before we begin.” 

At exactly twelve o’clock, their fourth member strode in, giving everyone a pleasant smile. If Okame looked like every stereotypical foster teen, Daisuke was the opposite. He had perfectly cut and styled hair that was bleached white, clear skin, and was wearing a button down and slacks of all things. 

“Apologies for my tardiness,” he said, taking the last seat at the table. “Daisuke Taiyo. Pleased to meet everyone.”

“Hi, Daisuke,” everyone greeted. Yumeko seemed like the only person who was at all enthusiastic.

“So, now that we’re all here,” Reika said. She took a breath, looking over the four kids that she would be spending the next ten weeks with. “My name is Reika, your main counsellor for this group. I have a Bachelor’s in social work, and am currently working for a Master’s. The county funded this program for foster kids who need a bit of additional support in their life, and Mr. Jiro—” she gestured towards Mr. Jiro, who was still sitting, unhelpful, “—grouped you together based on age and experience. He will oversee these meetings and meetings with other groups, but I’m focusing specifically on you four. The goal of this group is to provide a safe space for everyone to express themselves and work to grow as people. So, I think it would be best to start with introductions and why we’re here. Again, I’m Reika, I’m twenty-three, I was in the foster system for a few years, which is why I’m pursuing my MSW. I like staying involved in the local community and am excited to get to know all of you.”

“At least tell me we’re giving you credit hours, or something,” Okame said. They were giving her 2 credit hours, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.

“Who would like to go next?” she asked.

There was a pause.

“I’m Yumeko. I’m fifteen, I’ve been in the system for about five years now, and living with my current foster parent for three. I’m here because Iaso— that’s my foster dad— thought it would be a good idea, and I trust him. I think he wants me to be less antagonizing to authority figures, but I think Principal Denga needed to lighten up. That’s all.”

“Thanks for sharing, Yumeko. Does anyone want to follow up?”

“Tatsumi. Sixteen. I’m here because…” he paused. “My case manager decided this would be a good way to transition from one situation to another. Okame, you’re next.”

“Hi, everyone,” Okame waved. “I’m Okame, sixteen, been in foster care for… twelve years, I think? I don’t know. I’ve been in and out of a lot of different places, moved counties a few times, met a lot of cool people. I like drinking, basketball, shiny things, uh… I have no redeeming qualities, so keep that in mind. I’m here because my case manager told me it would be good for me, and I feel very bad for that poor woman who’s put up with me for the past four years. Daisuke Taiyo, in the prim and proper outfit, it is your turn.”

“Hello. My name is Daisuke, I’m seventeen years old, and have only been in the system for about four months because I made a few less-than intelligent decisions. I’m currently living with my uncle, and have been informed that I’m taking this change in my life badly. So I was told to come here.”

Which told everyone absolutely nothing while sounding like he was telling them things. She actually knew  _ exactly  _ why he was there. So he was going to be difficult, too.

Who was she kidding? Everyone was going to be difficult.

“So you have a chance of going back home?” Yumeko asked. 

“I  _ will  _ be going back home,” Daisuke corrected. Reika tried not to wince. That was  _ not  _ a way to make friends. “My parents just have to take some workshops and talk to a counsellor over the summer, and I have to be here once a week for ten weeks. Easy.”

“Good for you,” Okame said. “That’s one of us who isn’t fucked.”

“I don’t think you’re fucked just because you’re in the system,” Daisuke furrowed his brow. “Miss Reika was in foster care, and now she has a bachelor’s.”

“We’re literally all in a support group for problem cases.”

“For the sake of everyone else, Okame, please also refrain from calling this group support for problem cases, at least until we get through rules and introductions,” Reika said, just before launching into said rules. They were the basic ones about creating a safe environment— no hitting, name-calling, hazing, et. cetra— as well as confidentially and how to behave with each other outside of therapy. Friendships weren’t discouraged outside of group sessions, as long as it remained healthy and didn’t keep anyone from sharing in group, but romantic relationships were forbidden until the end of the ten weeks. She took this opportunity to learn who had been to therapy before by who was obviously tuning out what she was saying. Which was to say, Daisuke had not been to therapy. Everyone else had already heard these things.

“Alright. I think that’s the technical side of things out of the way,” she said. “Now, we’re going to do a group activity. Who’s familiar with improv?”

“ _ Fuck, _ ” Okame said, eloquently.

Everyone, turned out, was familiar with improv, even though they had varying opinions. Reika had purposefully chosen the improv scenes not to have any symbolic interpretations. It was just a way to get to know everyone and get familiar with doing potentially embarrasing and stupid things together. The first round— detectives in a crime scene— was stilted and awkward for everyone involved, including Yumeko, who decided to be the body halfway through. By the fourth round, however— delivering a wanted item into safer hands— everyone was getting along fairly well, and the scene ended with Daisuke confessing his undying love to Okame, the both of them dying dramatically side by side, Tatsumi sacrificing his life in defense of whatever unnamed object they were trying to protect, and Yumeko turning to Reika, whispering  _ ‘there can only be one’,  _ and pretending to shoot her. Reika pretended to die, because she’d also have to participate in said stupid things.

“A beautiful performance,” Reika congratulated. “Very dramatic. Nice twist.”

“You can get up, now,” Tatsumi nudged Okame, who was lying sprawled out over Daisuke’s legs, who was also still laying on the floor.

“Corpses can’t walk,” Okame muttered.

“Corpses can’t talk, either,” Daisuke pointed out, and didn’t attempt to get up.

“Are you a theater kid?” Yumeko asked Daisuke.

“No, but my siblings always said I had a flair for the dramatic.”

“Oh, you have siblings?”

“Second-youngest of six.”

Okame finally got off of the floor and helped pull Daisuke up. They all settled back around the table and took more food. She didn’t miss how Tatsumi kept sneaking food into his pockets, but decided not to mention it.

“Alright, now that we seem to know each other a bit better and are comfortable confessing our undying love— thank you, Daisuke— I think it’s time to set some goals for ourselves. We all know why we’re here, but right now, we don’t know exactly what we’re hoping to accomplish. Realistic goal setting is an important skill to have. So. Everyone, take a marker and a color of paper, write your names at the top.”

No one seemed happy about this turn of events, but they all chose pieces of paper. Reika did as well.

“Now. When setting goals, it’s important to think about where we are and how much time we have together. We have thirty hours total, spread out over ten weeks. I may assign small tasks over the weeks—” Reika was met with groans from Okame and Yumeko, and displeased expressions from Tatsumi and Daisuke. “They will mainly be about maintaining certain habits. Realistic goals depend on being specific, relevant, and attainable. You can’t be expected to magically fix everything about yourselves, here. That’s not what this is about.”

“Damn, so I  _ can’t  _ press a button and fix everything?” Okame asked dryly.

“No. No you cannot,” Tatsumi responded just as dryly.

“I can start and state my goal. I remember when I was in foster care, I met a lot of good people born into bad situations,” Reika said. “And a lot of the time, when they started to struggle, people would give up on them. I know that I can’t fix any of you, or your situations, but my goal is to help smooth your path in any way I can, and give you some of the aid that may be denied elsewhere.” She paused. “Does that seem like a reasonable goal for ten weeks from now?”

“You forgot to add on the credit hours you’re getting from this,” Okame said. Yumeko snickered slightly.

“This isn’t a class, it’s an internship.” She was still getting credit hours, but no one needed to know that.

“Oh god, I hope it’s  _ paid. _ ”

It wasn’t. 

“Anyway. Would anyone like to go next?” she smiled. “Or we can go in a circle, if you’d prefer.”

Okame, who was sitting to the left of Reika, seemed much less enthusiastic about speaking, but everyone was staring at him.

“Uh… I mean, I’m here for a lot of reasons. I’m classified as a  _ runner,  _ people say I have some sort of trauma disorder, alcoholism, bad academic performance, uh… getting kicked out of foster homes, though that usually relates to one of the above… I guess I want to work on not getting kicked out of places so much? I mean, I’m not looking for  _ adoption,  _ I’m way too old for that, but being able to stay in a place for more than a month would probably be…” he paused. “Nevermind, I don’t want that, that sounds horrifying, I’ll take my group homes and boarding schools, thank you.”

Reika blinked. It was a lot of information very fast.

“Okame. Have you ever heard of  _ opposite action? _ ” Reika asked. Okame’s eyes widened in a way that told her he knew  _ exactly  _ what opposite action meant. She kept looking at him, eyebrows raised. “Opposite action is a method of CBT when one does the opposite of what their emotional urge is. Say, if a recovering anorexic is afraid of going to a party because they know they’ll be expected to eat cake, they’ll ensure that they go to the party. Or if an alcoholic—”

He groaned and wrote it down on his paper.

“You’re next, Daisuke,” he muttered. “Fuckin’ CBT.”

“I’m just here because I was court ordered,” he said, deadpan.

“You were  _ what? _ ” Yumeko yelled.

Daisuke shrugged.

“All of you are here because someone else either asked or forced you to come,” Reika said patiently. “While you’re here, what do you want to accomplish?”

There was a long silence.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” he said softly. “Because I’ll be put back into father’s custody within the next few months. And even if I wouldn’t be, there’s only seven more months until I turn eighteen.”

“Dude, why were you court-ordered group therapy?” Yumeko asked. Daisuke flushed and didn’t respond.

“Just because your situation is temporary doesn’t mean you can’t take the opportunity to improve how you handle situations such as these,” Reika said. 

There was another pause. 

“We can come back to you at the end. Yumeko?”

“I want to get better at social cues and learn how to make friends. I haven’t been so good with friends ever since CPS had me move counties,” Yumeko said. Reika nodded, and she hastened to write it down.

“I guess I have anger management problems,” Tatsumi said neutrally. “My caseworker calls them red-outs. I’d like to stop them. Or… I guess that’s unrealistic. I’d like to decrease them.

Reika nodded, and everyone was looking at Daisuke again.

“I want to ease my transition into foster care by listening to others who have been in the system for longer,” he said, and started writing. Reika could identify bullshit when she saw it, but it wasn’t bulllshit for the sake of bullshit. It was bullshit because he didn’t know how to identify what was wrong, and that didn’t need to be called out in front of everyone.

She collected the papers, looking them over to make sure everyone had actually written things down. Time was almost up, so she finished by having everyone give one or two emotion words.

_ Note to self: print out an emotion wheel before next week. _

“Tired isn’t an emotion, Tatsumi.”

“Neither is hungry.”

“Not applicable doesn’t count.”

“Yes, numb counts as an emotion. Thank you for sharing.”

It was the start to a great summer.


	2. Session 1, Chapter 2: Daisuke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daisuke's journey to support group

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week was a bit hectic, but I haven't forgotten that I'm posting.

_ Three weeks ago _

It had been five hours since the station called his father, and two hours since they informed him that his uncle and lawyer had arrived and were talking matters over with the chief of police. So at least something was happening outside of the holding cell, even if he wasn’t privy to it.

“Hey.” 

Daisuke looked over and gave a nod at Akari in the cell over. She gave him a glare, which was only pronounced by the black eye and split lip he had given her earlier in the night. His ribs hurt like hell, though, and he was still vaguely nauseous.

“You didn’t tell us you were a  _ Taiyo. _ ”

“I didn’t,” he responded.

“Or that you were seventeen.”

“I didn’t.”

“What’s the likelihood that your dad passes this off as assault of a minor to get you off the hook?”

“Low, considering that they need my cooperation to do that,” he said. “And uncle isn’t one for bribing the police.” Especially for his brother’s son who was just living with him for summer. “Don’t worry, you’re safe.”

There was a silence between everyone. The three men in cell 1, five women in cell 2, and Daisuke isolated in the corner, because apparently teenagers couldn’t be kept with adults. He was vaguely insulted. They weren’t barbarians who’d start attacking the youngest out of anger just because they all had a frowned-upon hobby. 

“You fight good,” Akira admitted. “For a kid.”

“A minor, maybe, but it’s unwise to mistake age for skill.”

“What reason does a Taiyo have to join an illegal fight club, anyway?”

Daisuke shrugged. “It’s… freeing. Karate separates everything into levels, belts, and organized systems of rules and forms. Fencing has divisions and methods that you can or cannot use depending on the sword. In illegal fight clubs, you win or lose on your own, no brackets, no rules. There’s a certain gratifying factor, in having nothing to hold back.” He grimaced. “Though hiding the bruises always ends up being the real challenge.”

“You take karate and fencing?”

“I can also juggle.”

Akira snorted. “Smartass.” There was a silence. “I can’t believe that I’ve gotten beat up multiple times by a high schooler.”

“And we’ve beat up a high schooler multiple times,” someone pointed out. 

“Hey,” one of the women tapped the side of his cell. “There aren’t any hard feelings. We’ll be happy to have you back when you’re eighteen, assuming you can find us.”

Daisuke smiled. “Thank you. I intend to hold you to that.”

The door to the holding cells opened up, making everyone startle. A police officer ignored the first two cells and beelined for his, grabbing his arm—  _ ow,  _ there were definitely hairline fractures— and dragging him outside, into the main body of the police station, then into a break room. His uncle was sitting at the table with the family lawyer, who didn’t look happy to have been woken up at 2:00 on a Saturday morning. And his  _ caseworker,  _ Mr. Sugiyama, who looked similar _. _

Daisuke took a seat next to his uncle, ignoring the fact that he looked like a nameless hooligan at the current moment. Messy hair, bloody fists and unfitted clothes were all things unbefitting of a politician’s son. He wondered what his father would think if he saw him like this.

His father, he noted, wasn’t in the room.

“Daisuke,” his uncle said. “You’re an idiot.”

“Sorry, Uncle Morimasa,” he replied. 

“How long have you been part of this group of yours?” Mr. Sugiyama asked.

“Not long.” Eight months, ever since his unofficial club at school got caught, everyone got stern letters home, and his father realized that he hadn’t actually been home in three weeks, which tipped the administration off to both his little  _ pilgrimages _ and the fact that his father didn’t notice them.

“Daisuke, this is concerning,” Mr. Sugiyama said, which was one of his favorite phrases. “You said that you weren’t going off during the night and that you weren’t getting in fights.”

“Forgive me if I don’t see an issue with partaking in a mutually consensual activity that so happens to be fist fighting.”

“Your Uncle informed me that you disappeared for three days last week. And he also told me that your father hasn’t shown up to his visitation hours for a month now,” he said. Daisuke felt himself flinch. “You didn’t tell me.”

“Busy man,” he said quickly. “There’s an election this year, and he has to clean up this entire scandal, and you’re making him take seminars, and he still has another child to look after.” To pay the nanny to look after, but  _ still.  _ “One hour a week isn’t worth much, especially factoring in driving time. He’ll spend time with me when you give me back.”

“And running away?”

“I wasn’t  _ running away, _ ” Daisuke bristled. Running away implied that he wasn’t planning on going back, or that there was something to run from. It had only been three days. He had gone off on his own for longer and no one paid him any mind. “I was... taking a leave to clear my head. And I came back.”

Mr. Sugiyama didn’t look impressed. “You’re in legal trouble. Your group was breaking the law.”

“I’m aware.”

“This is not the first time you’ve been in legal trouble.”

Daisuke winced, knowing  _ everyone  _ was thinking about the circus incident.

“Frankly, neither you nor your father are meeting the conditions to get you back into his care. We wrote up a plan that you said you would stick to. That involved not  _ taking a leave _ for days at a time, meeting with your family for an hour a week, and not… participating in underground fighting rings.” There was a pause. “Is your  _ not long  _ overlapping your time in that group upstate?”

He assumed they were referring to the third fighting ring he joined two years ago and was busted five months prior. He missed that one.

“Yes.”

“Can I ask why?” Morimasa Taiyo asked. “You can take karate lessons. You can take fencing. There’s no need for this. You’re breaking your family’s heart.”

Daisuke looked down at his hand. His knuckles were bleeding, and he definitely had hairline fractures from hitting the cement the one time he fell, but there wasn’t any real damage. It wasn’t like he was concussed. And telling his uncle that his father hadn’t signed him up for extra curriculars ever since he stopped paying the nanny to care for him because ‘ _ Daisuke’s nine and has older siblings, he doesn’t need a nanny’ _ wasn’t an acceptable answer to say in front of his case worker.

“I enjoy it,” he said instead.

There was a loud silence. 

“The police let you off with a warning last time, but after your circus stint, they aren’t inclined to repeat that. They’ve talked with myself and Mr. Sugiyama, and we’ve managed to convince them not to charge you with assault. Just disorderly conduct,” their family lawyer— Daisuke didn’t remember his name, but felt bad for him— said, pushing a few papers towards him. “However, in order for that  _ and  _ to stay in your uncle’s custody—” Daisuke stiffened. “Yes, Daisuke. That can be called into question if this continues. Everyone here understands that you’ve been going through some rough changes and you might be prone to act out, but that’s not an excuse. So you’re going to be attending therapy.”

“I don’t need therapy,” was the wrong thing to say. He  _ didn’t,  _ just like he didn’t need to be in CPS just because his father hadn’t noticed when he left home and came back with bruises, but by the looks everyone else was giving him, he wasn’t in a place to argue.

“Our branch of children’s services has a summer program for foster kids who need a little extra support,” Mr. Sugiyama said. “I think it can help you through your time in foster care and connect with others who are going through similar things. It would be a healthier outlet than… getting concussed every weekend. Please. Read the paper.”

Daisuke resisted the urge to sigh as he picked up the pamphlet his lawyer had pushed towards him. He scanned it, taking in about half of the information. Ten weeks, thirty-hours, small groups of foster kids across the tri-county area. A great opportunity to set one’s life on track.

Daisuke didn’t say that he didn’t want anything to do with a bunch of foster kids when he wasn’t going to be a foster kid by the end of the summer. He wasn’t in the same category as these people. He was living with his  _ uncle,  _ for gods’ sake _.  _

But it was better than having assault on his record. Or getting taken away from his family. 

“Fine,” he shrugged, trying to keep his appearance pleasant and polite even though he was holding his pamphlet with bloody hands. “Does my father know? About the charges, that is.”

“He was informed. You can talk about it over your next visitation. It’s scheduled for Wednesday, I believe. If you could just sign here on the line to ensure your intention to participate, we can talk to the chief of police and get you out of here. No court proceedings, no misdemeanor charges, no jail time.”

Daisuke nodded and signed where he was told. It wasn’t like arguing would do anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'll level: I have NO IDEA what canon Daisuke's home life is like, other than the fact that he was well loved by the Court. But for this fic, this what I've come up with. He's dealing with his life EXCELLENTLY.


	3. Session 1, Chapter 3: Okame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all I now have an apartment.

_ One month ago _

Okame was actually pretty okay with his monthly case manager appointments. They were a hassle, and usually ended with her being disappointed and him being frustrated, but they lost their illusion of importance when he had been going to them for twelve years. It was one or two painful hours that ultimately served no purpose other than to keep track of months.

However, he didn’t like  _ cars,  _ and that was making everything much harder. He knew that he had been banned from public transit for a reason, but they made him itchy, and it meant he was being  _ supervised  _ the entire time, which meant that he couldn’t go to his meeting and then head downtown to buy liquor or hide out in the library for a few days or catch a bus to another city until someone reported a homeless teenager to CPS and that CPS contacted  _ this  _ CPS because they put out an amber alert for him like a bunch of assholes.

“You’re fidgeting,” the driver— Okame promptly named him Steve— said. “Are you usually this fidgety?”

“Don’t you have better things to do than to drive sixteen-year-olds to their appointments?” Okame asked. By the silence that followed, Steve  _ definitely  _ had better things to do, but also liked his job at the rich-kid Chrisitan boarding school, so he wasn’t about to tell the annoying charity case anything.

“Are you nervous?” Steve asked. 

“I’ve had these appointments since forever. I’m over being  _ nervous, _ ” Okame replied. “I just don’t like cars.”

Steve decided the conversation was over and stared at the road. Okame reached into his backpack, took out his water bottle, and took a swig of diluted vodka. His stash was running seriously low, but there was no way he was driving an hour, having his appointment, and driving  _ another  _ hour while sober. 

What was wrong with horse and buggies, again? And trains? Okame liked trains.

CPS base of operations was a pretty brick building with a nice flower bed and a warm waiting room, population: him. He checked in with the receptionist and waited, calmly calculating his chances that he could get to the bus stop without anyone catching him. Considering the receptionist was staring at him like she knew exactly who he was— she did, because most kids had their case meetings at foster homes or over the phone— his chances were pretty low. And he wasn’t particularly inclined to try running away again. He had two weeks until summer. He could wait until then. 

“Okame Hino,” Ms. Ito called from the hallway. Okame dutifully followed her into her office and shut the door behind him.

Contrary to popular belief, he didn’t actually hate his caseworker. She was obviously trying her best with him. It wasn’t her fault that he was a problem child who couldn’t hold down a home for more than a month and got kicked out of a boarding school.

“So. I’d like to start by saying that I’m proud of how you did this month,” she said.

“This is now officially an intervention for you. You need better standards,” he responded. “I’m still the little monster that sold the rich kids alcohol and called my science teacher a degenerate hairless monkey.”

“But you didn’t do that this month. And you attended Saturday schooling and did all of your homework. So as long as you keep to that plan, you’re going to pass your classes.”

“And then never be invited back,” Okame finished. “Again: little monster. You’re allowed to call me what I am. I don’t mind.” That was probably the alcohol talking. People couldn’t insult him when he was tipsy. He was untouchable. 

“Next year we can give public school another shot or find another boarding school. I’m not worried about that right now,” she said. “Right now, I want to focus on summer plans for you. This is our fourth summer working together, and I want this one to go… smoother.”

Okame winced and took another sip from his water bottle. Everyone insisted that summers were hard for most foster kids, without school keeping them occupied and out of the house, but he was pretty sure they said that to make him feel better. He tended to go crazy over the summer. 

“Cool,” he responded. “So you’re going to pre-emptively put me in a psych ward? Or just lock me in a padded cell for three months. That would probably do the same amount.”

There was a silence. Okame took another drink. 

“Have you ever considered that the reason therapy never works for you is because you never open up to anyone?”

“Most certainly,” Okame said. Ms. Ito stared at him. She did that a lot. “I feel like this is where I’m supposed to apologize for being like this and giving you headaches. So. I’m sorry that I’m like this and give you—”

“Okame,” she interrupted. “After foster care. After aging out and graduating. What do you want to do with your life?”

Okame clenched his jaw. He didn’t like questions like this, especially from her. From everyone else, they sounded condescending, and he could brush that off easily. But from her, she just sounded concerned. She  _ knew  _ that he didn’t have a plan. That he had no idea what to do with his future, because twelve-year-old him thought that he wouldn’t live to high school, let alone beyond that. That he’d probably die before he reached twenty because that’s what failures of the system did. His story would probably be used to scare another foster kid into straightening up their act, and that was the best he could hope for.  _ Don’t be like Okame Hino, he drank himself to death before he reached twenty-one. _

“I’ll join the mafia,” he said, which was the line he used, because saying  _ I still don’t know  _ was pathetic and saying  _ I’ll probably be dead in five years  _ got him put on therapy for the summer and another note about suicidal ideation in his record. He wasn’t suicidal. He just knew the position he was in, and people like him died young. No need to cry about it.

“Well, I think we can start with this summer,” she said. 

Okame half listened, half sat in a tipsy stupor as his case manager talked. There weren’t any homes open to take him, so he’d be staying in a group home until further notice. He had to be there from ten PM to eight AM every night, do chores, and get along with the other kids, but he was allowed out during the day and it was in town, so there were worse places he had stayed. He swore they used the hospital as an in-between home last summer. She wanted him to get a job over the summer to keep him occupied, and was going to make him fill out three applications a day until he got one. He could handle that, too. Although he couldn’t drive until he was out of foster care, he could take the lecture classes to get prepared for his driver’s test. 

He refused that one off the bat.

“Okame—”

“I refuse to learn how to drive. It’s not happening. It would be a waste of time.”

“You really should consider—”

“Nope. Besides. Alcoholics shouldn’t drive. I am accepting that I have an alcohol problem and therefore shouldn’t be allowed to drive.”

“Driving is a necessary part of living in this area.”

“You act like you don’t remember that I threw up in your car,” Okame deadpanned. “I’m not driving.”

She gave a sigh. “Okay. There is one more thing.”

“Oh?”

“Because summers are hard for you, I think you should try therapy again.”

“ _ Fuck no. _ Isn’t this the definition of insanity? Isn’t sending me to  _ another  _ shrink when  _ none of the others  _ did anything the definition of insanity?”

“There’s a summer program that you would benefit from. You’d be attending weekly group therapy with other children in your situation and growing together. Individual therapy obviously  _ hasn’t  _ worked, but you may work better in a group setting.”

“There’s group therapy for fuckups, now?”

She sighed again. “For foster kids in difficult situations. A lot of kids struggle, Okame. You’re not alone.”

“It’s group therapy for fuckups. I’m not going to fuckup support group.”

“Why not?”

“Because it won’t work. I’ve gone through  _ psych wards  _ and they didn’t work. I’m not going to screw up their chances of magic group therapy healing by inserting myself into a program that won’t work. No,” Okame said. “Hey, and you said that I was doing  _ better  _ this month!”

“Yes, and I’m trying to make sure you continue to do better,” she said. “Okame. You’ve been in this county for four years now, I’ve been working with you for  _ four years,  _ and I know better than to think you’re going to get better for yourself. Maybe if you have people to care about and people who are also trying to improve, it will be easier for you.”

“Fuck that.”

“Okame.”

_ “What? _ ”

“I know you’re drunk.”

The silence was tangible.

“You did better this month. I’m not going to say anything against that. But  _ better  _ is still drinking to get through a car ride and school hasn’t even ended,” she said, letting out a long sigh. “I don’t want you to wind up back in the hospital this year. Or in juvie. Or dead.”

Eight-year-old Okame would’ve been shaken by the fact he was risking his life. Eight-year-old Okame would be horrified. Sixteen-year-old Okame couldn’t care less.

“Ever consider that drinking is a lot better than what I could be doing? A lot of kids at Christian Boarding School were doing cocaine and adderall. And I’m a functioning alcoholic, as alcoholics go. Mostly. I can pass my classes, at least.”

“Barely,” she said. “If you’re truly against group therapy, there are other options. There’s a counsellor that deals specifically with the griev—”

“No,” Okame shook his head before she finished, everything in him going cold. “I’m not doing that. I’m not fucking spilling my guts to some lady who doesn’t— no. No. Fuck that. We’ve already  _ tried  _ that.”

“I’m not trying to corner you or make you miserable. I’m trying to make this easier for you.”

“I’ve lived through every summer so far.”

“ _ Barely. _ ”

Okame resisted the urge to chug the rest of his bottle. He still needed that for the trip home. 

“It’s one meeting a week. Ten weeks. You can survive. And I don’t expect this to solve everything, but there’s no harm in trying,” she said in a voice that meant she was really trying everything she could to help him. He preferred the social workers  _ before  _ her, who gave up the moment they read his file. He had gone through five over two years before he landed in this county and Ms. Ito refused to give up on him. “Hey. It beats sending you to a foster camp. Everyone hates those.”

Okame shuddered. Summer camps for foster kids  _ sucked.  _ He went to one when he was eleven and they had to sit around in a circle and tell everyone their ‘foster story’. Spoiler alert: most people were in foster care because of abuse or neglect. Okame was there because his parents died. It wasn’t a good ice breaker.

“It’ll be good to keep you busy.”

“For you guys, maybe,” Okame muttered. His caseworker kept staring at him. “ _ Fine.  _ Fine. I’ll get a job and go to fuckup support group and try not to do anything stupid this summer. Is there anything else?”

“Right. At the group home, you have breathalyzer tests at a random day each week. Just something to keep in mind.”

Okame didn’t dignify that with a response. He stood up, left the room, and made it to the damn car to take him back to the damn boarding school so he could finish the damn semester and get functionally expelled. 

“Fun meeting?” Steve asked.

Okame finished his water bottle. “Shut up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please give me the sweet sweet external validation in the form of kudos or mayhaps a review. It would be greatly appreciated.


	4. Session 1, Chapter 4: Tatsumi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this chapter has been hard for me, but I think it's as good as it will be. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not have Dissociative Identity Disorder. I have done my research, and my current roomate is a system, but this is not by any means something to base your perception of DID off of. This is much more based on Tatsumi's and Hakaimono's relationship than how realistic alters would come to be.

_(one and a half months ago)_

“Tatsumi Kage.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know why you’re here?”

“No.”

“Do you not remember last night?”

Tatsumi was quiet. The doctor continued to look at him calmly, clipboard in hand. He had a nametag, but Tatsumi didn’t bother to read it. He had a feeling he wouldn’t know this one for long. Everyone was annoyingly silent, so Tatsumi had to guess.

He had gotten home from school, did his chores, tried to meditate and failed, ate the leftover chicken skewers, and hid out on the roof. Mr. Ichiro had come home in a mood, already angry at him for something his case manager had emailed. Tatsumi’s memory was blurry around there, only that he had refused to get off the roof when Ichiro called him.

“I had a red out, didn’t I?” he asked.

 **_Guess again. I was perfectly aware of what I was doing._ ** A demon muttered in his head. **_Let me in. I can talk to the doctor better than you can. I’ll even pretend to be you, if you’re really insistent._ **

Tatsumi ignored him.

“You bit your foster parent,” he said. “And screamed incoherently until someone called the police.”

 _Did I, now?_ Tatsumi thought pointedly at Hakaimono, who he was going to blame for everything. 

**_Yeah. The bastard deserved it. You’re lucky that Kami stopped me from scratching his eyes out, because I promise I would have._ **

“Tatsumi,” the doctor said, but it came out distorted to his ears.

“Yes, sir,” Tatsumi _didn’t_ respond, but his body spoke anyway. “Is Mr. Ichiro okay, or did I cause more damage?”

That was the last thing Tatsumi heard before his vision went black and Kamigoshori took over.

*

Apparently, biting one’s foster parent, screaming, and cursing out the police in Japanese— why did he know Japanese?— led to _psych facility,_ which was excellent for someone trying to hide the fact that there were three people living in his head: Tatsumi, the one who seemed to be in the body most of the time; Hakaimono, the one who said he was an oni even though everyone knew better; and Kamigoshori, who tried to mediate between the two of them. Tatsumi didn’t remember much from the facility. A few days here and there, meds that made him stiff and tired, and one very loud argument between Kami and Hakaimono that left him with a horrible headache. Also, all of the online classes that none of them wanted to take.

They said he had been there for a month. It felt like ten days at most.

**_Well, that fucking sucked._ **

_Shut up, Hakaimono. You didn’t have to bite Ichiro, and then we wouldn’t have been in that situation,_ Tatsumi thought. _Did anyone find out?_

 _No._ Kami said, and a coil seemed to unwind from around his chest. He was fine with not getting a diagnosis. In fact, he really didn’t want one. _Even an oni knows how to keep a secret. Though he did bust Mr. Ichiro for, quote “being a homicidal, abusive, dickbag”, so I guess we’re back in the system._

**_Do you really think anyone will take you right after getting out of the loony bin? Or ever, now?_ **

_Doesn’t an oni have better things to do than bully a teenage boy?_

**_I really do, but I’m stuck in this body until it dies, so… the bullying will continue until you and Tatsumi cack. Unless you want me to go on my pre-planned, multiple-year murder spree until someone fucking kills you._ **

Tatsumi resolutely ignored everyone as his caseworker finished the last of his discharge papers. They didn’t talk until they reached the car and started driving. After a month in a blank facility with kids who kept rotating in and out, being outside was a change in scenery that he was grateful for.

“Do you think you made progress?” she asked.

“Yes,” Tatsumi responded. “Am I still on anti-psychotics?”

“Yes,” she replied. 

“I didn’t do it because I was going crazy. He was threatening to kill me,” Tatsumi said. He still didn’t remember that night, but that’s what Hakaimono kept insisting. “I still think it was justified. Mental hospital didn’t change that.”

She sighed. “Just… take the anti-psychotics. Please.” There was a pause. “You should know that Ichiro isn’t allowed to foster anymore. That situation is a situation where you call me and ask me to get you out. You’re sixteen, now. I’d trust your judgement.”

“Noted,” Tatsumi responded. “I’ll try calling before biting, next time.”

His caseworker snorted. “Thanks.” There was a pause. “You were only expected to be in there for a week, you know.”

“I guess there was a lot to work through,” he responded.

 **_There was,_ **Hakaimono responded, and he didn’t sound as angry and bitter as he normally did.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen now that I’m out,” he said. “School is over, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Online schooling seemed to work though. You passed your classes,” she said. “From here, we have a new foster parent lined up—”

Tatsumi could still vaguely follow her voice, but it was hard _not_ to dissociate when Hakaimono started screaming profanities— _why_ did he know Japanese?— and his anger was _so much_ that it was hard to remember that it wasn’t his. Tatsumi focused on his feet to try and ground himself, but he still felt himself drifting away from his body.

“—Mrs. Hanshou has had kids before and they never reported major issues, and while chances of adoption are low, she tends to foster them until they’re out of the system.”

 _Don’t switch in,_ Tatsumi thought, keeping his gaze out the window in a deadpan expression and trying to keep himself in control. It was an exercise in perseverance and determination, as well as the ability not to let emotions become contagious. The anger in his head wasn’t his. It was Hakaimono’s. Tatsumi didn’t know _why_ Hakaimono was so opposed to foster homes— always had been, even the good ones they got placed in when they were younger— but he wasn’t going to let a demon sabotage the prospect of a permanent home until graduation. 

**_Fuck you, idiot child, I’m not letting you go back to another damn family. I will get us kicked out, I will put us back in the hospital, I swear to hell—_ **

_Onis don’t get rights._

**_What the hell does that mean?_**

“I’ve also gotten in contact with your old psychologist,” his caseworker continued, even though Tatsumi was fairly certain that he wasn’t all there anymore. “He suggested that you start therapy again to better transition back into normal life.”

“Makes sense,” Tatsumi responded while Hakaimono kept screaming. He hoped Kamigoshori would shut him up. They really needed their mediator.

“There’s a group over the summer for foster kids. It would keep some structure over the summer while you find your footing again. Once a week, three hours, the same kids every week. What do you think?”

Hakaimono quieted slightly, even though Tatsumi could still feel his anger pushing into his consciousness. Tatsumi had never actually gotten to participate in group therapy while in the closed ward, since Kami or Hakaimono always switched in, and it would give him structure over the summer. Besides, if he had gone an entire month without anyone figuring out everyone living in his body, the risk of a few teenagers finding out was low.

 **_I don’t like it,_ **Hakaimono said.

That decided it.

“I think it would be a great idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta-da...


	5. Session 1, Chapter 5: Yumeko

_ (Three weeks ago) _

Yumeko, it needed to be noted, wasn’t a bad student. In fact, she considered herself fairly bright. She showed up every day on time, wore her uniform like she was supposed to, minus a tie or matching socks, and generally earned Bs or low As for her efforts. True, she wasn’t the most attentive when her teachers let her sit near a window, and her foster dad would forever be concerned that she never asked to go over to a friend’s house, and yes, she was responsible for putting two dozen baby chicks in the elevator before winter break, and taping plastic dinosaurs to the underside of every desk in the math hall, and the fruit fly incident, but she was still a good student. And it wasn’t like her shenanigans  _ hurt _ anyone, other than Denga’s patience.

In hindsight, the fact that she was a good student was probably the reason she had only gotten an in-school suspension and a week of summer school. 

“So, what did you do this time?” Isao asked calmly as she got in the car. She was grateful that he wasn’t angry. It was one thing to be suspended, but being suspended for final’s week was different. 

“It didn’t hurt anyone!” Yumeko said quickly. “It was just a stupid prank. Principal Denga needs a better sense of humor.” 

“And what was this stupid prank?” He asked calmly. “It didn’t involve any cats, did it?”

“So I have study hall second period.”

“Yes.”

“And I skipped it to go to the greenhouse.”

“Naturally.”

“Because I spent this semester growing milkweed and butterfly weed for the school gardens.”

“I can see where this is going.”

“So I moved them to the main hall.”

“And?”

“And released monarch butterflies in between periods.”

There was a pause.

“Where did you get the butterflies?”

“I raised them.”

“Why?”

“Study hall was boring, and I spent months on growing things just to put them in the school gardens. The school doesn’t deserve them. And people needed something fun before finals,” Yumeko said. In a private school full of competitive overachievers, everyone looked like a ghost during finals. People liked her pranks previously, and having an impromptu butterfly garden in the main hall had brought a lot of smiles to their faces as they watched the administration scramble to keep the day organized.

“Hey, I kept a pot of milkweed, too!” Yumeko dug in her bag and carefully unearthed the pot. “So we can start a butterfly garden in the yard.”

Mr. Isao’s face remained impassive, but Yumeko could swear she saw his eyes crinkle slightly. “We’ll see if you complete summer school without any more incidents.”

%

Yumeko spent finals week studying for finals, which was really a win-win situation in her opinion. It was boring, sure, but in-school suspension was designed for people whose social life revolved around school or who were trying to get  _ out  _ of school. She refrained from sneaking out when her supervisor’s back was turned, but did end up stealing a total of thirteen pens from the room, which she thought was  _ very  _ impressive. Summer school consisted of actually getting to take her finals, which went as well as she expected. At the end, Principal Denga gave her a glare and told her that she wouldn’t be allowed to have a greenhouse class next year.

Yumeko didn’t mind. She could do just as much without access to the greenhouse.

However, she  _ did  _ mind that her case worker came over during summer school, and seemed overly concerned in the fact that Yumeko  _ needed  _ summer school. 

Yumeko wasn’t a fan of her caseworker.

“Your guidance counsellor has also voiced concern about you,” she was saying. “She says that a lot of people in your grade like you, but you don’t seem to be making any long term friends. She believes that your pranks are a call for attention, and that it will lead you to the wrong crowd.”

“They are  _ not, _ ” Yumeko crossed her arms. If they were a call for attention, she’d take credit for them. The only times people knew about her pranks were when she got caught. She had only gotten caught for the fruit fly incident and the butterflies. “I do them because they’re funny and everyone in that school is bored. It sparks joy.”

Her case manager gave a sigh. “Iaso, I understand as a foster parent, you may believe this is normal behavior for a young teen, but I ask that you reign Yumeko in. With her family’s history, her behavior now could easily lead to worse things down the line.”

Yumeko pursed her lips to stop herself from saying anything stupid. It wasn’t worth getting in a fight with her social worker.

“I think that Yumeko is a bright young lady who simply has some excess energy and a love for chaos. Her…  _ shenanigans,  _ as she calls them, don’t get anyone hurt, and are well within the bounds of a bored child. As for her father, I think it unwise to judge a child by the life of their parent.”

Yumeko smiled slightly. She was lucky to have gotten placed with Mr. Isao. It made the past three years much easier on her, and she was hoping that adoption could be in the future. A solid life that wasn’t at risk of being pulled out from under her at any moment.

She didn’t pay much attention through the rest of the meeting, even though she probably should’ve. She had been in this home for three years; a week of summer school for a harmless prank wasn’t going to get her relocated, and that’s all that she cared about, concerning her caseworker. That and the possibility of adoption.

The caseworker was mostly an inconvenience, at this point. 

“So… are you disappointed in me?” Yumeko asked when the case manager left. 

“You know that Principal Denga has your best interests at heart, right? School isn’t horribly fun for any high schooler, but he’s not trying to make you miserable. ”

“You’re only saying that because you helped found the place.” Yumeko smiled when she said it, but sobered quickly. “You know that I don’t do my pranks to cause trouble or be an inconvenience, right?”

“Tell me, why do you do them?”

“Because they’re fun to plan. Because it gives the school something interesting to talk about. Because it makes a really,  _ really  _ good story for my future kids. And because school is really boring sometimes.”

“It would be less boring if you talked to some of the kids there. Or joined a club, maybe. I do worry about your social skills, Yumeko. They’re essential to have,” Isao said. “I am not disappointed in your pranks. However, I am concerned that they don’t have an appropriate outlet, and I am concerned that they  _ will  _ become dangerous.”

Yumeko sighed. Disappointment was always worse than anger, and  _ concern  _ was always worse than disappointment. 

“I’m just… not good at friends. They don’t seem to stick.” She said. “I never have been, even  _ before—  _ before CPS and moving and coming here and everything. And I’ve gotten by fine. Mostly. It’s just a few harmless pranks.”

“I worry,” he repeated. Yumeko sighed, putting her elbows on the table even though she wasn’t supposed to. “I’m sure you’re not the only person in the system who struggles with finding their place in the world.”

“I’m  _ definitely  _ not,” Yumeko snorted. “Most of them just react so much worse.”

“Perhaps it would be good to talk to some of them. I’m sure there are meetings of some sort.”

Yumeko furrowed her brow. She hadn’t really talked to any foster kids since she settled in with Iaso. Sometimes she could go as far as convincing herself that she was practically adopted, so the term  _ foster kid  _ didn’t apply anymore, even though it did. Maybe meeting people in similar situations would be good for her.

“There probably are,” Yumeko said. “I wouldn’t be opposed.”

That turned out to be one of her better life decisions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wraps up Session 1, so there will be a longer waiting period as I write Session 2 chapters


	6. Session 2, Chapter 2: The Mystic Golden Arches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally finished session two of the shamelessly-project-onto-JKag's-characters story! I'm having the time of my life, guys.

In boarding school, Okame shared a room with one person. He never learned his name, just that he was an asshole who tried to cut off his ponytail and should’ve probably been in juvie but instead got “specialized schooling” because his parents were rich. Now, he shared a room with six other kids, ages ten to seventeen, and was right across from the room with seven kids, aged three to nine. There were no zero to two-aged kids, because they were still cute and adoptable. There were three adults that looked after all of them, kept all of their schedules in order, and kept all destruction to a minimum.

Okame prefered this arrangement than his situation in boarding school. They kept a closer eye on him than most of the kids— being a runner would do that— but for the most part, they let him go to work and hang out in the library until curfew. He tried to confine his drinking to after work and before bed so none of the kids would notice and he’d pass his breathalyzers. It had varying results— one of the kids he roomed with drank as much as he did and encouraged him to keep it up— but he hadn’t failed his breathalyers  _ yet.  _ He refused to go to kiddie rehab this summer. 

It was with that information that he walked to his caseworker’s building, signed in with front desk, and wandered down the hall.

“Hi. I have a shift in an hour and a half, so if there’s any drama, can we get that out of the way first?” he asked, sitting in the chair that had become way too familiar and trying not to squint at the sunlight shining in through the window. Everything was bright and loud and too much, but…

“First thing’s first.” She handed him a breathalyzer.

“You know that alcohol withdrawl can cause seizures, right?” he asked and breathed into it forcefully. It beeped. Came back clean. He was definitely buying sake after work.

“It’s a true wonder you haven’t had any symptoms of it, then,” she said dryly.

“A miracle.”

“Also, I’ve talked to my boss, and he decided to be pre-emptive this summer. Ankle on the desk.”

“ _ Fuck. _ ” Okame obliged and tried to ignore how itchy tracker bracelets made him feel. He had been on one from August to October of last year, ever since his spectacular friendship with Noboru ended with three broken ribs, a five-inch gash across his chest, and internal bleeding. It seemed Ms. Ito had learned her lesson.

“There’s no radius. It just tracks where you’re going. How is work?” she asked, as if he wouldn’t be spending the next two hours trying to get the thing off of him.

“Uh… rewarding?” he said. “I’m working at McDonald’s. It’s not exactly my finest passion. A nice preview of the rest of my life, though. And you were right that it’s stopping me from ending up passed out in a ditch three states over.” He idly wondered how much money it would take to get to Canada and the likelihood of not getting in trouble for border hopping. He wondered what CPS was like in Canada. “You’ve robbed me of my favorite pastime.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Running away, or drinking?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you considered getting better pastimes? Perhaps you could take up knitting. Or origami.”

Okame snorted on a laugh. “This is why I like you better than Mr. Carlson.” And Mr. Jones, the caseworker before Mr. Carlson, and Ms. Sato, the caseworker before Mr. Jones. He generally didn’t think about the lady before Ms. Sato, but being sober made that much harder. “You have a sense of humor.”

“Are you drinking  _ less,  _ at least?”

Okame gave her an indignant look. “I’m not drinking!”

“You’re sixteen, so I’m allowed to swear.  _ Bullshit,  _ Mr. Hino. Now answer the question.”

“I am drinking less,” he said. 

“How are you feeling about that?”

It was playing  _ hell  _ with his sleep schedule, he couldn’t keep meals down, his head might as well have a rabar through it, and he had a panic attack in the breakroom over absolutely nothing yesterday— he could feel another coming on when his ankle came back about half a pound heavier— but at least he wasn’t drinking as much alcohol as usual. 

“It’s fine,” he said. She didn’t call him out on bullshit, this time around.

“And I believe you went to our first group session yesterday. What do you think of it?”

“The counsellor needs to be paid,” he said. “Uh… it’s fine, I guess? She knows her stuff, wants me to work on not getting kicked out of places. Speaking of which, what happens if I get kicked out of a group home? Do we start using psych wards again?”

“Yes.”

“Damn,” he muttered. “The kids there are okay. Yumeko seems fun, Taiyo is really pretty. Oh, and I met with Tatsumi, from… uh, motherfucker who got me sent to boarding school.”

“Mr. Ichiro.”

“That’s the bitch!” Okame grinned. “He locked me in a closet… I think I bleached all of his clothes, though, so it’s totally warranted.” 

“You  _ think? _ ”

“The few months before boarding school are very blurry, so I can’t be sure,” he said. “Probably the alcohol. Anyway. Ms. Reika wants me to work on holding down a place for more than a few months. I’m going to let her do whatever. It’s not going to work, but she cares about this internship, so… sure. She can savior-complex me.”

“Do you think you could consider working  _ with  _ her, rather than letting her talk and doing nothing about it?” Ms. Ito asked.

“I… don’t see a point.”

“But you’re going to play along,” she said. Okame nodded. “You never do that with me.”

“Because you can tell when I’m lying. It’s really annoying,actually,” he said, letting out a sigh. “Well. Since I am painfully sober, I’m going to go to McDonald’s and have a breakdown in the bathroom the next time my manager yells at me about the broken ice cream machine.”

“Okame,” Ms. Ito said before Okame could stand. “Try to give this a chance.”

Okame nodded. “Okay. Whatever, I’ll participate in fuckup support group. Can I go, now?”

Ms. Ito gave a sigh as well, pinching the bridge of her nose as if it could help. Okame felt a little bad, but she only had to deal with him for an hour a month. And when he tried to run away. And when he did something stupid enough to get kicked out of a home or put him in the hospital.

So, fairly often.

“I hope your other kids are easier,” he said. She was a good social worker, as they went. She hadn’t given up on him for four years even though she probably should have. She deserved to have easier kids than him.

“Don’t be late for your shift,” she said. “And don’t miss curfew, either.”

Okame snorted and took his cue to leave, silently determining, not for the first time, if having a case manager treat him like anything  _ other  _ than a lost cause was grounds to get a state over. 

Maybe she’d hate him like she was supposed to if he set the McDonald’s on fire.

*

Yumeko wasn’t good at staying where she was supposed to stay.

She wasn’t running away. She wasn’t a runner. But Iaso dropped her off at the library for the day so she wouldn’t have to spend the day bored at home, she had fifteen dollars in her wallet, and McDonalds was a  _ block away.  _ She loved Iaso, but he was one of those people who had a vegetable and fruit garden. He’d probably grow his own rice and make his own bread if he had more time. Yumeko appreciated a home-grown meal, but she also appreciated fish fillet sandwiches with fries and a milkshake. 

However, there were some things that she wasn’t expecting out of an impromptu, semi-legal trip to the magical golden arches.

“Welcome to McDonalds, how can I— fuck, hi Yumeko.”

“Okame?” she gasped. Okame grimaced. He looked ridiculous, with his hair crammed under his cap and his uniform shirt wrinkled. “I didn’t know you worked here!”

“I didn’t know recognizable people came here. Let me just… drown myself,” he said. “Would you like a cheeseburger?”

“Right! Yeah, I want… a fillet sandwich, medium fries, and a large vanilla milkshake. Please. Oh, can I get a happy meal toy?”

“God, I wish that were me,” Okame muttered. “You can get a happy meal toy with an extra $1.69.”

“Excellent,” Yumeko grinned. “It’s good to see you! Does your family live— oh god, sorry, you said you’re in a group home. Is it close by?”

“Close enough,” he shrugged.

“Did you have fun on Saturday?”

“Uh… I guess? I should get started on— wait, that’ll be 6.87, your order number is 348. Why did they let me on register duty on my third day?”

Yumeko took the receipt that Okame thrust at her. “When do you get off? Isao isn’t going to pick me up until 6:00, I could hang around until then. It would be fun.”

Okame opened his mouth, then winced and covered the ear with a headset in it. 

“Sure, sure, I get off at 4:00, see you then. Jackie, please ask Kay to put me on flipping burgers or something.”

“Tough luck, kiddo,” a guy a few years older than Okame said, sliding a try and yelling  _ 346!  _ loudly enough to make Yumeko wince. “You’re the face of McDonald’s. Own it.”

“Everything’s loud,” Okame said. 

“Are you hungover or something?”

“ _ No!” _

“Your hair’s falling out of your hat,” Jackie said and promptly walked away. Okame gave a deep sigh. He didn’t attempt to tame the strands of hair that had come loose from his ponytail, other than blowing one out of his face.

“For the record, I’m  _ not  _ hungover,” he said firmly.

“I didn’t say you were.”

Two minutes later, Yumeko claimed her prize of McDonald’s and discovered that her Happy Meal toy was a  _ windup,  _ which was the best news she had gotten this week. She spent the next three hours playing on her phone, scrolling through social media, and watching Okame have what might be the quietest mental breakdown she had ever seen. And she had taken advanced placement history in a private school of overachievers.

4:00 turned to 4:15 before Okame went into a backroom and came back in through another door, a backpack thrown over his shoulder. He sat down across from Yumeko and pulled out a water bottle.

“So…” he said, taking a long swig. “I wasn’t planning on seeing you outside of group.”

“I know, neither was I. This is such a lucky coincidence— I usually don’t come to McDonald’s. My foster dad is super into organically grown, homegrown foods, but sometimes you just need really cheap and greasy french fries.”

“Your foster dad’s diet choices sound horrible,” Okame said. “And that’s coming from the guy who ate boarding school food for a semester. That stuff was  _ disgusting.  _ I have no idea what the cooks were on.”

Yumeko wrinkled her nose. Her caseworker held boarding school over her like a threat, so she knew most of the horror stories. Okame didn’t seem traumatized by it, but she was going to steer clear. With any luck, Isao would consider adoption eventually and she wouldn’t have to have a caseworker.

“Sounds bad. Your caseworker must hate you.”

“Nah… she’s cool. I’m just a menace to the world at large. You can ask Tatsumi in group next week. Granted, we knew each other for, like, two weeks, but when you share a room with someone for  _ two weeks—  _ that was a horrible foster parent, I’m glad Tatsumi got out.”

Okame spoke very quickly, Yumeko noted, and easily jumped from one subject to the next. It was hard to keep track of the conversation. She liked it.

“I actually found him on facebook. And Daisuke,” Yumeko said. Okame looked at her curiously. “Oh. Am I not supposed to do that?”

“Probably not? I haven’t made friends in a long time, so it  _ feels  _ like you’re skipping some steps, but who knows? Certainly not me.”

“I didn’t find you,” Yumeko said.

“Don’t have a facebook. Or a phone, other than my lovely flip phone that will probably outlive me. But you can’t use any internet on that, and there’s  _ two  _ computers at the group home. I never get dibs. That’s why I like the library.”

“I could give you my number,” Yumeko offered. Okame raised an eyebrow. “We could text! It would be fun!”

He stared at her for another few seconds, before snorting and shaking his head. He took another drink from his bottle.

“Let me give you some advice, from a foster system veteran,” he said. “Make friends with Daisuke and Tatsumi. They’re going to be good friends. I, however, would be a horrible friend. I throw up a lot of red flags.” He cleared his throat loudly, and started counting on his fingers, “Been in the system for twelve years without a permanent placement. Was sent to a boarding school. Currently drinking sake and ginger ale out of a water bottle. Got kicked out of a place in two weeks. All bad things. I’m not a kid. I’m one of those foster children who becomes a statistic for some social worker’s textbook, and statistics don’t have friends.”

Yumeko looked over Okame again.

“What?” he asked.

“You’re really mean to yourself,” she said.

“You’re really blunt,” he responded.

Yumeko shrugged. People said that often— it got her in trouble most of the time, because when someone said  _ do you have a problem with me,  _ the correct response turned out  _ not  _ to be  _ I have a huge problem with you, and this is why _ — but she didn’t see any point in skirting around a topic. Speaking one’s mind tended to be easier. 

So long as speaking one’s mind didn’t involve telling Principal Denga that his moustache was ugly.

“So… can I have your number?” she tried again. “Maybe you’ll end up liking me.”

Okame stared at her for a few seconds. He looked tired as he rolled his eyes and scribbled a number on a napkin. Yumeko beamed.

“Please remember, I have a pay-by-minute phone,” he said. “No calls, minimal texts. If you don’t get tired of me, tell me to come by the library or something.”

“Great!” Yumeko said. “Wanna go to the library now? That’s where I’m supposed to meet Isao, anyway, and there are more things to do there.”

*

Okame was supposed to go straight back to the group home after work. Instead, he ended up spending two hours with the most excitable fifteen-year-old he had ever met. There was a basketball hoop attached to one of the walls of the library, and Yumeko had affectionately bullied him into teaching her the basics of one-on-one.

She sucked at it, and not just because she was 4’11.

By six, his uniform was drenched with sweat, Yumeko had scored exactly two baskets, and nearly turned basketball into a full-contact sport. He had a pounding headache and his hands were shaking uncontrollably, even with the sake he had drank after work, but the weight of the ankle bracelet wasn’t as pressing in this mind, nor was his current plan devolving into  _ biting his ankle off _ . Her foster father found them sitting on the blacktop, Yumeko having gotten bored and started reading some of her summer reading books aloud. Okame wasn’t listening, because he couldn’t care less, but it seemed to keep her more entertained than if she had to read The Ox-Bow Incident alone.

“God, why did I sign up for AP Lit?” she groaned, letting the book fall onto her face.

“I have no idea,” Okame responded. “How did you even get into a private school, anyway? Who did you have to sell your soul to?”

“My foster dad helped found it,” she said casually. “So I got a bit of a free pass.”

“ _ Wow.  _ You’re really lucky,” Okame muttered. He tried not to sound bitter. He knew perfectly well he could’ve gotten fostered long term— even  _ adopted,  _ maybe— if he had actually straightened his act. His situation and inevitable addition to some statistic somewhere was entirely his own fault. Still. Yumeko had been fostered for  _ three years,  _ and she was fifteen. That meant her foster father had picked her up when she was twelve. That was too old for most people to be adoptable.

“I am. He’s really great. I mean, he just took me for week-days for the first six months, but now I’m pretty permanent. I think I’ll age out with him,” Yumeko said. “We’re making a butterfly garden this summer.”

Okame nodded along and finished off his water bottle. He wasn’t drunk enough to feel the calm that came with enough alcohol, when the world had rounded off all its rough edges, but the headache was better, and he didn’t think he was at risk of having a seizure. Those were horrible, and he tried to have as few as possible.

A car beeped on the blacktop, making Yumeko’s head jerk up. She grinned.

“Gotta go, see you on Saturday!” Yumeko said, racing off before Okame could get out a  _ see you, too.  _ He snorted and threw their basketball into the return bin. He wasn’t allowed on public transit, yet, but he could swing by the gas station for some horribly cheap liquor on his way back home. He supposed he did splurge on the sake.

But sake tasted  _ good,  _ and he stole the ginger ale.

Yumeko was running back over to him.

“Isao invited you over for dinner tonight! He says that a friend of Yumeko is a friend of his! He  _ does  _ make good food, I promise, even if it’s organic, and you can see the garden. It’s a work in progress, but we already have some monarchs, and the blue ones — I don’t remember their name—”

Okame blinked rapidly, and decided he must’ve gotten more drunk than he thought, because Yumeko just invited him—  _ him _ — over for dinner.

He must’ve gotten more drunk than he thought, because he nearly considered it. It seemed like Isao was a good foster parent. He had to be, to wrangle a twelve-year-old Yumeko. Okame hadn’t gotten one of those in a while. And having a meal that wasn’t in his work’s breakroom or in a crowded dining room where he was expected to sit through screaming kids and tired social workers sounded…

_ Don’t, Okame. Don’t you dare intrude. _

“Sorry.” Okame shrugged and grimaced. “I have curfew.”

“Oh,” Yumeko said, like she had forgotten curfews were a thing in group homes. “Well, we could drive you back, if you want a ride.”

“I don’t like cars,” he continued. Yumeko blinked and had the gall to look  _ hurt.  _ “Look look, that’s not me blowing you off. I know it sounds that way, but it’s not. I get  _ really  _ nauseous. I’ve thrown up in so many cars, and that’s not the first impression I want to make to anyone.”

Yumeko nodded, brow still furrowed, like she was trying to find a way around it.

“So you just walk everywhere?”

“Yup.”

“You don’t have a bike?”  
“Nope. Can’t ride one. Don’t know how,” he said. “Don’t worry. I enjoy walking.”

“Okay,” Yumeko said, copying his nonchalant shrug. “Well, see you Saturday.”

“See ya,” Okame managed to respond before she went back to the car. He watched them drive away before continuing his journey.

Dinner had sounded nice.

_ Shut up, Okame. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okame's... he's fine. I'm sure he'll be fine.


	7. Session 2, Chapter 2: There's an Oni, Loose in the System

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I know two (2) systems with Dissociative Identity Disorder. One of which is not myself. Their symptoms manifest differently. When I write in Tatsumi's perspective, I do it with them in mind, but do not take this as an accurate representation of everyone with DID. Thank you for your understanding.

**_Theory: Hanshou’s Yakuza._ **

That was not what Tatsumi wanted to hear while making eggs on a Tuesday morning.

_ Oh my God, she’s an eighty-year-old woman who carries pepper spray. She’s not Yakuza. _

**_She’s sketchy._ **

_ Kami, make him stop. _

**_Kamigoshori is dead, long live your new gatekeeper._ **

_ You are NOT my gatekeeper. The day you become gatekeeper is the day I kill myself. _

**_Excellent! Die!_ **

_ Hakaimono!  _ Tatsumi tried not to flinch at the intensity in Kami’s voice.  _ If you don’t shut your mouth I will shut it for you. _

There was a long silence.

_ Is anyone actually going to tell me what I was doing yesterday? _

**_Murdering children._ **

_ Not funny, Hakaimono. _

**_In your opinion, maybe._ **

No one responded seriously, which was horribly unreasurring. He was only staying with Mrs. Hanshou four days out of the week— Saturday, Sunday, and Monday he was staying with another family, who seemed happy to use him as a babysitter for their other two foster kids. Tatsumi wasn’t known for his skill with children. 

_Kami, are you good with kids?_ _  
_**_I am,_** said Hakaimono.

_ You are NOT. _

Tatsumi managed to finish making eggs without burning them, himself, or getting raw eggs on the kitchen stove. He wasn’t a fan of this kitchen. He wasn’t a fan of this house in general. As much as he hated agreeing with Hakaimono for any reason— he generally adhered to the rule of  _ don’t listen to the guy whose Plan A always involves murder _ — the place made him dissociate. Not in the way he dissociated when Kami took over and did whatever thirteen-year-old girls did, or when Hakaimono kicked him out and he came back in a hospital with someone informing him that he bit his latest foster father. It was just plain, old-fashioned, inability to associate his body with his identity.

Therefore, after he finished eggs, it wasn’t of much shock that he floated through eight hours of his life, his daily chores, and a conversation with Hanshou while processing  _ none  _ of it.

“Huh,” he muttered.

**_I hate it here,_ ** Hakaimono stated.  **_She’s really old. You sure we can’t just…_ **

_ Murder is not an option. _

**_She’s practically dead, anyway!_ **

_ You know, Hakaimono, maybe if you actually told us WHY you don’t like it here, or anywhere, we could actually do something about it. Remember all of those helpful things you learned in the closed ward? _

**_While I was pretending to be Tatsumi? Like hell am I taking their advice, and like HELL am I taking advice from a ten-year-old girl._ **

_ Thirteen. _

“Ma’am?” Tatsumi resolutely ignored his two roommates. Hanshou was reading in the living room, and looked up when he approached her. “I was wondering if I could use the computer for a bit. I’ve finished all of my chores.”

“Kids,” she muttered. “You’re much too young to waste your life indoors, staring at a screen. Most twelve-year-olds—”

“Thirteen,” Tatsumi corrected, and then promptly realized that it hadn’t been Tatsumi to correct that. “Sixteen. I’m sixteen.”

“You look twelve.”

“I’m sixteen.”

“You said you were thirteen.”

“I’m sixteen.”

She went back to reading.

“Please?”

“Fine. Only for a few minutes.”

Tatsumi took the victory. He didn’t make use of computers often, since he didn’t have any friends or hobbies, but he did try to keep up-to-date with the news, and he did have Facebook. He still needed to block Ichiro. Hakaimono didn’t like that idea— Tatsumi could tell that he wanted to check in on their old foster father, and  _ that  _ was a disaster in the making— but that part of their life was over. Tatsumi didn’t want anything else to do with that.

Ichiro hadn’t sent him any messages, thankfully. None of them needed that. There was, however, a new message from an unfamiliar icon.

_ Yumeko: This is the correct person, right? _

_ Yumeko: I found Daisuke, too. _

_ Yumeko: Can’t find Okame. _

**_She’s a stalker._ **

_ Will you SHUT UP? _

Tatsumi had no idea why Yumeko had looked for him— from what he knew, people weren’t supposed to interact with their group members outside of meetings. It interfered with their motivation, or something. Besides, he didn’t exactly give off a  _ friendly impression _ . Hell, he had shared a room with Okame Hino for two weeks and didn’t even attempt to reconnect during group.

Not that he wanted to associate himself with people like Okame. The kid had showed up, bleached all of Isao’s clothes in the wash, saw that Tatsumi had gotten sub-par grades on a report card, and distracted Isao from that fact by drinking half a bottle of liquor and taking a knife to his couch. 

To his credit, that stunt had saved Tatsumi a beating, but he had dissociated through most of that evening.

Yumeko was online. And she was typing.

_ Yumeko: update: I found Okame. He said I was crossing a line by finding you and Daisuke. Sorry :( _

Tatsumi blinked.

_ I like her. _

**_I don’t._ **

Tatsumi’s hands were on the keys before he knew who was controlling them.

_ Tatsumi: It’s a bit forward. I’m impressed you found Okame, though. I’ll give you points for diligence. _

He wasn’t one for friends. Isao hadn’t liked them. He said that Tatsumi didn’t need them with how he’d end up— some inevitable criminal or low-life, the way he was going, because he never did things  _ right  _ around the house, an embarrassment that was lucky that Isao hadn’t given up on— 

**_Fuck off with thinking about the bastard. I should’ve done what Okame did two weeks in and skipped town. Or straight-up set him on fire._ **

_ Hakaimono. _

**_Kamigoshori._ **

Tatsumi tried not to wince. They didn’t often use her full name.

_ Ichiro was better than what we’ve faced before. _

**_Bullshit._ **

_ We don’t kill people. _

**_You and Tatsumi don’t kill people. I’m an Oni, and more importantly, I’m not a little bitch, so I don’t get hung up on something as small as a little blood and carnage._ **

Tatsumi rolled his eyes.

Tatsumi hadn’t realized it wasn’t  _ him  _ messaging Yumeko.

Tatsumi promptly lost consciousness.

#

Hakaimono cracked Tatsumi’s— his— knuckles, searching his mind as best he could for any resistance. Kami was trying to shunt him back out of the body, ever the dutiful gatekeeper, but she had been off her game ever since their stint in the closed ward. A few fragments were bouncing around— pure suicidal intent, rogue memories that no one wanted, other partial identities that were vague in everyone’s mind except Kami’s— but none of them were coherent. Hakaimono nodded to himself and looked around.

He  _ hated  _ this house.

_ Don’t bite anyone,  _ Kami asked softly.  _ I don’t want to spend summer in another closed ward. And biting an eighty-year-old woman would involve a lot of justification on my end. _

Hakaimono snorted. 

_ Are you going to tell Tatsumi that you realized you’re an alter, or… _

“Shut up,” Hakaimono whispered, because Tatsumi was really good at pointedly thinking in their direction, but he was...  _ not.  _ He was stellarly bad at it. “Just… go fuck around in the headspace. Do what thirteen-year-old girls do. Practice with that katana you love so much. I’m  _ busy. _ ”

_ I still don’t trust you. _

“I’m not going to bite Hanshou. Even if she  _ is  _ Yakuza.”

He wasn’t saying that to be annoying. She had way too many valubles for an ex-restaurant worker living off of retirement. She had a weird book club she made him run errands during. She had a  _ knife collection.  _ That didn’t necessarily mean Yakuza, but it certainly meant some sort of organized crime. 

He wasn’t an idiot. He wasn’t going to bite the lady involved in the maybe-Yakuza. There were better ways to get himself kicked out of a foster home.

One advantage of group therapy: he had access to resources that he never had before.

People. He had access to people that he never had before.

Hakaimono snorted. They were resources.


	8. Session 2, Chapter 3: Alcohol is Always a Solution.

Things that sixteen-year-olds were not supposed to be doing in the breakroom of a local McDonald’s: trying to get their ankle monitor off with a switchblade.

Things that Okame was doing in the breakroom of a local McDonald’s: trying to get his ankle monitor off with a switchblade.

It wasn’t going well.

“ _ Fuck,”  _ Okame whispered as the knife slipped and left a straight gash down his leg. He scrambled for a paper towel and pressed it to the open wound before checking the bracelet, hoping for some damage. 

There was a  _ nick.  _

He had had it on for less than a week and was back to Plan A:  _ Chewing his Leg off _ . Melodramatic? Maybe. But this damn thing meant that if something happened and he had to leave, he wouldn’t be able to. It meant he couldn’t sneak out without someone knowing. It meant he was  _ trapped. _

He needed bolt cutters. Funnily enough, the group home didn’t have those on hand.

“Holy shit, that’s blood. Wait, are you trying to—”

“Fuck off, Jackie,” Okame repositioned the knife. “I’m not on house arrest. My caseworker is just paranoid.”

“Are you planning on skipping town?”

“No,” Okame tried to apply pressure on the nick and managed to make it a little deeper without slicing his leg open again.

“Then… why are you trying to cut it off?”

“I don’t  _ like  _ it.”

Okame knew he probably looked insane at the moment. He didn’t particularly care. At worst, Jackie would report him to their manager, and Okame would get fired. Big deal. 

Jackie sighed. “See, kid, that just poor planning. Do you know what you’ll do after—”

“Don’t call me  _ kid.  _ You’re only nineteen.”

“—you get free?”

“Shut  _ up. _ ”

Okame felt a little insane at the moment. He hadn’t slept well last night with the nightmares, he was hungover, and the ankle monitor was driving him up the wall. He couldn’t ask to take it off without sounding suspicious, and he  _ knew  _ it wasn’t smart to take it off when he wasn’t planning a way out and he didn’t have anyone to run from, but he wanted— 

Jackie took the knife out of his hand.

“ _ Seriously? _ ” Okame grabbed for it, thwarted only by the fact that Jackie was stupidly lanky and could stand on his toes.

“Yeah.”

“You do  _ not  _ give enough of a fuck about me to stop me from making bad decisions.”

“I do not. However, I’m not risking our coworkers coming into that little stunt.  _ I  _ may not care enough to report you to Kay, but they will, and we  _ really  _ need you to keep your job. This place is super understaffed as it is. So we’re going to keep this our little secret, okay?” Jackie pocketed the switchblade, giving a charming, sharp-edged smile. Okame wanted to punch him in his smug face. 

“I’m not on house arrest,” Okame muttered.

“I don’t give a fuck why you’re wearing a monitor,” Jackie said and turned away to his locker, looking in the mirror to try to cram his ponytail back into his cap to no avail. He gave up after fifteen seconds and shut his locker. “I’m telling Kay that you fainted in the breakroom and are calling the rest of the day sick. Get a band-aid. Get a drink. Figure out what you’re going to do before you do it. If you commit a crime, don’t implicate me. I’ll make sure Ezi picks up your slack.”

He left without another word. Okame let out a long groan and looked down at the bracelet.

He really did need a bandaid.

Kay, thankfully, didn’t come in to check on Okame and let him clock out without any protests. Okame didn’t manage to snag a bag of fries on his way out, but he escaped with a padding of napkins stuffed under his bracelet, slowly collecting blood.

Now. For a drink.

“Okame!”

Okame jumped and turned, eyes widening.

“How the fuck do you guys keep finding me?”

Tatsumi shrugged, as unrepentant as Yumeko. Okame narrowed his eyes. He had only known Tatsumi for two weeks, and he didn’t remember most of it. He did remember, however, that Tatsumi was thoroughly uninterested in making friends.

“I need a favor,” Tatsumi said.

“Ah, that makes more sense,” Okame slid into the booth. “You didn’t order anything.”

“I don’t trust McDonald’s food.”

“Smart man,” Okame nodded. He had seen one of his coworkers eat a burnt hamburger from off the ground, though, and she didn’t die, so maybe he needed to give his place of business more credit.

Then again, one of his coworkers had eaten a burnt hamburger from off the ground. And their manager  _ watched.  _ And did  _ nothing. _

“I need you to get me something,” Tatsumi continued. Okame raised his eyebrows, and Tatsumi continued, “a bottle of vodka. I need you to get me a bottle of vodka.” There was another long pause. “I can pay you.”

“I have a job already,” Okame pointed out. “Why do you want it?”

“Why does it matter?”

“You weren’t interested in alcohol when we were living together,” Okame said. “I offered you some, didn’t I?”

“Things change,” Tatsumi didn’t explain. “Look, I’ll be perfectly honest. I look like I’m fourteen. I know this. No one is going to give me alcohol. But I’m guessing you know places that don’t look too hard at fake IDs, and you can pass for… older, at least. I can’t keep stealing from Hanshou’s wine cupboard. So… help a guy out?”

Hanshou. That would be his new foster parent, then. And whoever she was, or whatever Ichiro had done after Okame left, had led Tatsumi to start drinking.

Okame knew where the local AA meetings were. If he were a better person, he’d probably tell Tatsumi where one was. Or at least remind him that relations outside of group were supposed to be healthy.

“You pay for the alcohol and a bottle of mine?”

“Sure.”

“We have a deal. Oh— and vodka sucks. You wanna get trashed? Get your hands on moonshine.”

#

Okame was the most obnoxious guy Hakaimono had ever met, but he bought them both a bottle of cheap liquor. He drank his straight from the bottle and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Okay, headache,” he muttered. “Go away, now.”

Hakaimono kept his face emotionless, like Tatsumi’s, even though Hakaimono actually had quite a few emotions, and Tatsumi most certainly did  _ not  _ have ASPD, no matter what that trash counsellor tried to insinuate.

Honestly, he didn’t remember much of Okame’s stay with Ichiro. Hakaimono had been… unhinged, to put it nicely. His memories were disjointed at the best of times, and the rest were completely understandable. Kami had caught him up on the important things during group, though. Okame wasn’t exactly what Hakaimono expected. He was more trusting than he expected— Yumeko’s naivety, he expected, from someone who had only been in the system since they were ten and had a stable home for three years. Daisuke, he had nothing to go on, an no expectations. But Okame, he expected more from.

“What?” Okame asked.

“Nothing,” Hakaimono shook his head. “How was boarding school?”

Okame snorted. “Fuckin’ sucked. How was Ichiro? Other than a punchable face”

“I’m not there anymore,” he said, because no one needed to know about the closed ward.

“I’m glad you got out,” Okame clinked their bottles together in a mock-toast. He straightened. “I’m going to go. I need a place to stash this before curfew. Uh… don’t make a habit of that, okay?” He gestured towards the bottle.

“Like you?” Hakaimono asked.

“Yeah. Don’t be like me.”

_ Well, at least he’s honest. _

It took two connecting busses and a two-mile walk to get back to Hanshou’s, but it was worth it. Hakaimono let out a long breath as he let himself in through the guest room window. His room, technically. Temporarily.

He looked down at the bottle. 

Kamigoshori and Tatsumi would  _ hate  _ him.

So not much would change.

He emptied a quarter of the bottle into the ground and put the rest in an empty mouthwash container, which he placed under the desk. He’d put the liquor bottle in the trash. Hanshou was smart. She’d figure it out.

He hoped that would be enough.

“Gomen, Tatsumi,” he muttered, even though Tatsumi never remembered anything beyond his dissociation, and would never hear him. “I guess I really do exist to ruin your life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first person to correctly guess the origins of the names of Okame's coworkers gets to make a fanfiction request (i write for Talon Saga, Blood of Eden, and Shadow of the Fox). I may or may not actually do it, depending on how interesting it is, but I want to see if people get the reference.


	9. Session 2, Chapter 4: Grounding Techniques

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not dead, just working on a different story. Also college applications so I can go back to academia in the spring. Although the gap year was nice and I got lots of writing done, I fear my brain will atrophy.

Daisuke reached the community center thirty minutes early, hair sticking to his neck where it had come undone from its tail, sweating in the heat of the summer. He had forgotten sunscreen again, which meant his shoulders were going to be a peeling wreck by tomorrow. He parked his bike, went into the center, bought an iced coffee from the vending machine, and wandered to the room that group had been in last Saturday.

“Hi, Daisuke,” Reika greeted with a smile. If she was caught unawares by one of her patients showing up thirty minutes early, she didn’t show it. “How was your week?”

“It was alright, if ultimately unmemorable,” he replied, sliding into a seat. He pointedly did  _ not  _ check his phone. It had been three days. He didn’t need to keep torturing himself. “How was yours?”

“Same old,” Reika shrugged. “You’re early.”

“Early morning,” Daisuke replied. He had gotten up at four-thirty and was out of the house by five o’clock, but he had left a note this time, so it  _ wasn’t  _ running away. It was just going into town. At five o’clock in the morning.

He pressed the iced coffee to his jaw, even though it was about six hours too late for cold to work on bruises.

Maybe  _ he  _ could send a message to his father. He was sure there was a good reason to have missed visitation. And to have not texted. Daisuke couldn’t  _ think  _ of an explanation, but there had to be one.

“You appear troubled, Mr. Taiyo,” Mr. Jiro walked over and sat beside him. 

Daisuke blinked and swallowed. “Do I?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it turns out I’m a troubled teen,” he said. Mr. Jiro, thankfully, didn’t comment on the fact he didn’t use the phrase  _ foster kid.  _ Because he wasn’t. Wouldn’t be for long, anyway. 

“I hope you know that Reika and I aren’t here to judge you,” he said. “Or your family.”

Daisuke knew better than to snort at that, but it was a close call. His father might only be the city’s finance director, but the state governor was a Taiyo, even if he was a Taiyo that Daisuke had met once, when he was four, and had no memory of. 

“You’re very kind,” Daisuke smiled again, plastic as ever. He tried not to tap his leg as Jiro nodded and stood, resuming his position in a proper armchair, judging. 

He checked his phone. His father hadn’t messaged him, nor had any of his siblings.

He relented and opened messages.

_ Daisuke: You didn’t show up to visitations on Wednesday. Is everything okay at home? Send Eiko my love.  _

He sent the text and put his phone away. His father was busy. He didn’t owe Daisuke the time of day. He didn’t even owe him an explanation. Mr. Sugiyama didn’t need to know about the missed visitation, just like he didn’t need to know that Daisuke had left the house before anyone woke up and was debating coming back after everyone had gone to sleep.

The iced coffee wasn’t doing anything for the bruise, so he cracked it open and took a sip. His hands drifted to his phone again. He put it on the table, out of comfortable reach, before he could check again.

_ Busy man. _

He hoped Eiko was okay, but he refrained from sending anything to her directly. All of his older siblings had informed him they were embarrassed by his situation, and she hadn’t talked to him once. He could infer her stance without her outright telling him.

He kept up stilted smalltalk with Reika and Jiro until Tatsumi came in. He gave Daisuke a wave, then furrowed his brow. Daisuke looked at him expectantly. Tatsumi sat down next to him, darting a suspicious look at Reika and Jiro. 

“That’s a nasty bruise,” Tatsumi muttered.

Daisuke winced. “I’m aware. I can assure you that it doesn’t hurt as much as it seems.” And his ribs were in much worse shape. “And it was deserved.”

Tatsumi didn’t react to that. “You live with your uncle?”

“He’s not responsible,” Daisuke responded a bit too quickly to be believable, if Tatsumi’s blank, expectant expression was anything to go from. “He’s not. He’s actually going to be rather cross when I come home with this on my face.” not that Uncle Morimasa ever had to know. He just had to sneak into his room, grab his makeup, and cover it before anyone saw. He didn’t want to talk to Mr. Sugiyama again. If he heard  _ this is concerning, Daisuke  _ one more time, he was going to lay down on the pristine rosewood floors and throw a temper tantrum.

He  _ really  _ didn’t want Mr. Sugiyama to decide that Uncle Morimasa wasn’t providing ‘proper parenting’ to him. He knew what  _ that  _ meant.

“Huh,” Tatsumi said, obviously disbelieving. “So what happened? And if you tell me you hit your head on something, I’m not going to believe you.”

“It’s not your concern,” Daisuke responded softly, glancing at Reika and Mr. Jiro again.

“I’m not a mandatory reporter. And those two don’t need to know.”

“It’s not Uncle,” Daisuke snapped. Not that he had anything to  _ prove  _ to Tatsumi, but if he suspected the wrong thing and reported the wrong thing, Mr. Sugiyama would realize what he did during his early mornings. “It’s… I have a friend. We used to take karate together. Sometimes when we’re bored or stressed, we… practice. Sometimes it gets out of hand, and he kicked me in the face.”

Tatsumi blinked. “You fight.”

Daisuke groaned to himself. Softly. “Yes. I’m allowed to have hobbies. But my case manager doesn’t like it, so don’t report Uncle Morimasa for suspicions of hitting his nephew. Please. I don’t want another investigation.”

Tatsumi blinked. Then shrugged. “Okay.”

“Are you going to blackmail me with that?”

“Do you plan to run for office or something?” Daisuke must’ve made a face, because Tatsumi cracked a very,  _ very  _ slight smile. “I take that as a  _ no. _ ”

“That’s correct.”

“Do you want help with the bruise?” Tatsumi offered. He pulled a small bottle out of his backpack. Daisuke stared. “I’m in a good foster home. The one before that was less-than-stellar. I have a few habits. So...”

“Hand it over.”

Yumeko and Okame wandered in closer to the time group was actually supposed to start and sat down. Yumeko waved at Daisuke, who waved back.

“I sent you a friend request on Facebook,” she said. 

Okame elbowed her. “You don’t  _ start  _ with that. It sounds stalker-y.”

“I’m not stalking you!” Yumeko backed up. “It’s just— well, we’re going to be spending Saturdays together, so we should get to know each other, right? And you were pretty easy to find on Facebook.”

Daisuke tried not to wince. “I haven’t been on social media for several months.”

“Oh. Why not?”

Daisuke  _ did  _ wince at that. Okame reached over and gave him a stilted pat on the back.

“It’s 12:00,” Reika announced. “Is this a conversation we want to continue?”

“No,” Daisuke said. There was an awkward silence that he refrained from filling. 

“Okay, then,” Reika said, taking her seat at the head of the table. “It’s been a week since we met each other. From what I can tell, you’ve had some communication with each other, so you should remember each other’s names, right?” Everyone nodded. “Good. Before we start anything, I want everyone to tell us one good thing that happened to them this week. Does anyone want to go first?”

There was a silence.

“I got a job,” Okame offered. “It’s at McDonald’s, which is a shitty job, but it means I don’t have to justify every time I leave the group home, and I haven’t done anything stupid for a week, so I’m allowed back on public transit.”

“Congratulations,” Reika smiled.

“Thanks,” Okame said. “I think I could get stuck in the meat grinder and my coworkers would let me die, but that’s what the best friendships are made of.”

“Why were you banned from public transit?” Daisuke asked.

“Why were you court-ordered therapy?” Okame shot back with a smirk. Daisuke straightened. “Really. I’m curious. I was banned from public transit because I tried to run away. Multiple times.”

There was a silence, where Okame stared at him expectantly. 

“In this environment, you are always allowed to refuse to answer a question,” Reika said, “whether it’s posed by myself or someone else. However, unless the question is intentionally ill-spirited, triggering, or you’ve refused to answer the question before, I’m not going to tell anyone to stop. This teaches you to set boundaries in a safe setting. And I expect everyone else to respect those boundaries.”

“You’re going to become an  _ annoyingly good  _ social worker,” Okame said. “So. Taiyo. Do you want to set a boundary, or can you tell me why a politician’s son was court-ordered therapy?”

Daisuke was silent for a few more moments, looking at the other three members of his group. No doubt Reika already knew, so she didn’t count. The others…

A familiar, choking feeling of desperation rose up in this throat. Why was he  _ here?  _ He wasn’t a real foster kid. He was seventeen, and his father would get custody within the next few months, and he’d be allowed to forget this ever happened. He didn’t need counselling, he didn’t need CPS, he didn’t need his father to pay any more attention to him than he already did, because he was  _ busy,  _ and he still loved Daisuke, so nothing else mattered.

“I was in an underground fighting ring,” Daisuke straightened and tried to be as blunt as possible. If he was blunt and unashamed, people asked less questions. “It was busted about a month ago, and I was charged with disturbing the peace. I was court-ordered therapy so my Uncle wouldn’t pay a fine and I could stay in his custody.”

“Oh,” Okame nodded. “Wait, is that why you have a bruise on your face?”

Daisuke winced. “Is it that obvious?”

“Yeah.”

Daisuke made a note to pick up more concealer on his way home and half-consciously prodded at the bruise on his ribs.

“I went to the movies with my cousins,” Daisuke changed the subject as smoothly as he could. “They’re both in college, but they’re home for the summer. They’re nice. They haven’t brought up why I’m staying with them, and they treated me like I was actually their sibling instead of…” He paused on the phrase  _ the family disappointment. _ “So that was fun. The movie wasn’t very good, but it was an enjoyable day out. They bought me popcorn.”

“Thank you for sharing,” Reika said.

“I’m making a butterfly garden with Isao,” Yumeko announced. “We’re tearing up part of the backyard. I didn’t know if I’d be allowed to because I got suspended for final’s week. But it’s going to be fun. And I like butterflies.”

“What are you planting?” Daisuke asked.

“Milkweed, parsley, butterfly weed, purple coneflower… uh… some others. I’m super excited. It’ll be good to have something to do over the summer. I get bored really easily,” Yumeko responded. “And it’s a lot more interesting than the vegetable garden.”

“How much yard do you  _ have? _ ” Okame asked.

“A lot,” Yumeko responded. “I was shocked when I first saw it. What about you, Tatsumi? What happened over the week?”

Tatsumi didn’t respond for a while, like he had to put some considerable thought into finding something  _ good  _ that happened.

“Uh… I actually messed up with my foster mother,” he confessed. “She found something she wasn’t supposed to find, and she was disappointed and angry, and I… think I started yelling. But she didn’t kick me out or lock me in my room. She told me to take a walk and come back when I was ready to act my age. And I did, and we talked, and I now have locks on my windows, but that was deserved. So it was a nice change from what usually happens.”

Daisuke tried not to visibly shudder at  _ locks on his windows.  _ Uncle Morimasa had threatened that a few times, but he had never actually gone through with it, because Daisuke rarely used the windows to sneak out. He did, however, use them for roof access, when the house was too loud or too quiet, or when he just needed to be somewhere no one else would follow him. If someone locked him in his room, he’d probably start scratching at the walls within minutes.

“Thank you for sharing,” Reika said. “All of you. Our brains are often better at remembering bad events than good ones, so it’s important to try to reflect upon the good in our lives. It’s also important to associate our group sessions with positive emotions, in order to feel safe around each other. That being said, today we’re going to work predominantly on grounding techniques and why they’re important. Let’s start: how all knows what grounding techniques are.”

Everyone except for Daisuke raised their hands, though Okame’s raise looked more like an unenthusiastic flop.

“Who all habitually uses them?”

Everyone’s hands went down.

“Great,” Reika said. “A grounding technique is a method people use to distract them from unhealthy headspaces and refocus on what is happening in the present. It’s most commonly used during situations that cause high anxiety, but they can also aid with trauma, dissociation, urges to self-harm, and adjustment disorders. So, after we talk about some of these grounding techniques, we’re going to talk about how best we can use them in our personal lives.”

Reika passed out paper and pencils for all of them, in case they wanted to write down what they found helpful. Daisuke started drawing octopi on his paper and hoped she wouldn’t tell him off for not paying attention. He was. He understood what she meant about stressful situations, and life-changes, and how foster kids had higher rates of trauma and anxiety-based disorders than the general population. It just… it helped, to have something to do with his hands as Reika took them through how to re-engage their senses and their mind with the present moment.

He didn’t need to know grounding techniques. He wasn’t anxious. He was  _ fine.  _

“So. Before we move on, I’d like to talk about what we currently do with our anxiety,” Reika said, “And what causes anxiety for us.”

Daisuke’s pencil snapped. He bit back one of the curses his older sister taught him and hoped no one noticed.

Reika noticed. Of course she did.

“Drawing is often used as a grounding technique,” she said. “Or you’re really bored.”

“No, ma’am,” Daisuke put the pencil down. “Apologies. I don’t mean to be disrespectful.”

“Damn,” Okame muttered. Reika looked at him sharply. “Taiyo. This is group therapy, not… fucking… school or some shit. Reika’s not your teacher. You can’t get a bad grade in therapy. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

“I’m aware that therapy isn’t graded,” Daisuke responded as calmly as he could. He tried not to envy Okame’s darker complexion in that moment, because he could feel his face growing red, and he  _ knew  _ it was obvious. “I’m not an idiot.”

“Hey. Hey. Never said you were,” Okame put his hands up. “Don’t put words in my mouth. But you seem pretty anxious, so we should probably learn some grounding techniques about it, huh?”

“I’m not—” Daisuke paused. This wasn’t something worth getting defensive over. “I do not notice much anxiety in my life. I’m not in a bad situation, as situations go.”

“Do you like your Uncle?” Yumeko asked.

“He’s okay,” Daisuke said. “I don’t talk to him often. His real kids take most of his attention since they’re home from college.” Yumeko and Okame both winced, and Tatsumi twitched slighty. “What?”

“Birth children,” Tatsumi corrected softly.

“Oh.” Daisuke hadn’t even thought about it like that. It was just… expected, really, that his cousins took priority over him in the house, because they were Uncle Morimasa’s children and Daisuke was his nephew. But he supposed, in foster families— 

Daisuke shut down that thought before he could finish it. He wasn’t in a foster family. He was spending the summer with his Uncle. So it made sense that his cousins were doted on and he was staying in the guest room.

“Can we learn about these grounding techniques?” Daisuke muttered. He didn’t go back to drawing octopi. He took notes about how grounding techniques could fall into three general groups— physical, mental, and self-soothing techniques— with considerable overlap. Reika had them practice some of them together.

“Wait, breathing exercises are actually helpful?” Yumeko asked. “I thought my caseworker just told me to do that because she wanted me to go away and be quieter.”

“You don’t have much faith in your caseworker, do you?” Daisuke said.

“Absolutely none,” Yumeko responde. “Does anyone  _ actually  _ trust their caseworker?”

There was a silence.

“Eh,” Okame made a so-so gesture.

“Nope,” Tatsumi said.

Daisuke thought about it, then reached a simple conclusion. “No.”

“Great! That’s probably why we’re here!” Okame grinned.

“Breathing exercises are actually helpful, though,” Tatsumi said. “It’s a good place to start.”

It was calming. Daisuke could admit that. He could see how it would help, during the hours he kept waiting for his father to stop by, or when he checked social media and saw that his older brother had changed his header picture to one that Daisuke wasn’t included in, because Daisuke had been… doing something else when it was taken. Breathing kept his heart where it was supposed to be. As did some of the stretches she taught them. As did 5-4-3-2-1 exercises, which Daisuke had to admit were fun, because Yumeko was making a game out of identifying 5 blue things the fastest, and Daisuke was nothing if not competitive.

“Five things you can see that are blue.”

“Daisuke’s shirt, that one teacup… Okame’s ponytail holder—”

“That poster behind you and the trim around the door. This room’s interior design is truly… interesting.”

“It’s hideous. You can say hideous.”

“Okay. Four things you can hear other than your voices.”

“The birds outside, the faulty air conditioning,  _ oh hell— _ ”

“The horrible sound of Okame dragging his nails over metal— thanks, Okame— and…” Yumeko paused.

Tatsumi snapped his fingers. “This.”

“Great! What’s the next one?”

“I… think that’s enough to get the jist,” Reika said, looking at Okame reproachfully. “That was a truly horrible sound.”

“Thanks.”

Reika smiled slightly. She took them through mental exercises, from times tables to categorizing, and helped them all think of anchoring phrases, in case it was hard to orient themselves in the present or in their own bodies, which apparently was a problem for some people. 

Or, she helped Daisuke and Yumeko make theirs. Okame and Tatsumi participated, but they both acted like they had gotten that particular lesson earlier. If anything, Tatsumi helped Reika teach for a few moments. Daisuke’s was simple:  _ My name is Daisuke Taiyo. I’m 17 years old. I’m in control of my actions. _ He didn’t think he’d have to use it.

“Now. Self-soothing is a bit more complicated,” Reika said. “A lot of people in hard situations— myself included, at one point— find self-soothing techinques that create harm in the long run. The goal with many self-soothing techniques is to replace destructive coping mechanisms. Now, we’re not juding here. No one has to say what they don’t want to. So, does anyone think that they fall back on harmful coping mechanisms that they’d be willing to discuss?”

There was a silence.

“Get me dinner before you come for my life, at least,” Okame muttered, rolling his eyes. “Hi, my name’s Okame Hino, and I’m an alcoholic.  _ ‘Hi, Okame’.  _ My story begins at tender age of fetus, when my mother failed to abort me, which she really should’ve done, and now I’m here. Now, have my phone number, my email address, my social security number— that’s… not actually what AA meetings are like, if anyone is thinking about going to one. But anyway. I drink. Moonshine is really good. Vodka is shit. Sake is  _ the  _ shit. I don’t plan on changing that anytime soon.”

Reika nodded slowly. “Binge drinking and alcoholism is, in fact, an unhealthy coping mechanism that many people use. You’re very forward about it.”

“It’ll make it less shocking for everyone when I die of liver failure,” he smirked. Daisuke winced. At least, he supposed, Okame was honest about it. “Jeez, you guys look sad, now. It’s a joke. I’ll probably get hit by a car or something. Does anyone else have the trademarked maladaptive coping mechanisms?”

“Wow, I didn’t know you could use big words,” Tatsumi muttered, then slapped a hand over his mouth. For a second, he looked absolutely mortified, before his gaze smoothed back into the indifference he usually showed. “Sorry. That was rude of me.”

“That was hilarious,” Okame snickered. “You should’ve seen your face. C’mon, though. Everyone has a vice. Some people drink. Some people smoke. Some people shoplift, or…” Okame scratched the back of his neck, “join fightclubs.”

“That’s not a coping mechanism,” Daisuke straightened. “It’s a  _ hobby _ . There’s little difference between joining a fighting ring and taking a boxing or savate class. I happen to prefer one over the other.” He paused. “And it’s not a  _ fight club.” _

He was  _ really  _ starting to envy Okame’s skin, no matter how much people said pale skin was more flattering. Okame probably didn’t turn the color of a lobster when he was flustered.

“Okay, fine,” Okame shrugged. “Just saying.  _ I’m _ being honest.”

Daisuke didn’t respond to that, because he probably wouldn’t say anything nice. Probably something about how saying everything bluntly and casually to scare off questions wasn’t exactly  _ slick,  _ even if it definitely worked.

Daisuke didn’t like that he shared that strategy with Okame. He didn’t like that those breathing exercises helped. He didn’t like any of this.

He wasn’t a  _ foster child. _

“Drinking definitely counts as a maladaptive coping mechanism. Depending on who you talk to, and your intentions behind it, fighting can also be considered maladaptive. Self-harm, eating disorders, and risky or illegal behaviors are other examples. They technically count as self-soothing, because they bring you relief in the short term, but they cause harm in the long term.”

Daisuke tried very hard not to think about how many of his favorite hobbies could probably count as  _ maladaptive coping mechanisms.  _ He wasn’t coping with anything. There was nothing to cope with.

“Huh,” Yumeko nodded. “So, what are some not-evil self-soothing techniques?”

There were plenty, apparently. Rieka listed a few examples— listening to music, calling or texting a friend, going for a walk, doing an action one associated with safety— before she asked everyone else to chip in. Tatsumi contributed guided meditations and journaling, Yumeko suggested changing into clothes that were comfortable and nonrestrictive, and Okame even managed to suggest going outside instead of holing oneself in their room.

Daisuke was quiet. No one commented, but everyone noticed.

When he was stressed, he ignored it, and eventually it would go away. Simple as that.

He started drawing octopi in the margins of his notes again. Reika started talking about how they could use these grounding techniques in their everyday life, and Daisuke purposefully  _ didn’t  _ participate, because he didn’t  _ need  _ it. He was fine. He was a Taiyo. His siblings all turned out  _ fine,  _ and he would, too. Just because he was a bit unruly, just because he didn’t like staying in his home for too long, just because of the  _ circus incident— _

“Daisuke,” Reika said. Daisuke put his pencil down. She sounded exasperated. “Group therapy really only works if you participate.”

“I was ordered to attend, not participate,” he muttered. Then winced. “Apologies. That was rude.”

“That was certainly very defensive of you,” Reika said. “It is true, that none of us can force you to participate, and technically, you’re just required to show up for ten weeks. But you’re going to be here either way. Either you can spend three hours a week trying to ignore us, or you can tell us why you’re uncomfortable.”

Daisuke shrugged. He wanted to say that he didn’t belong here because he didn’t need help. His father hadn’t even been  _ neglectful,  _ let alone abusive, so there was no real reason for him to be in foster care in the first place. Daisuke never went hungry, he always had a place to sleep, and he got his vaccinations on time. The fact that he kept missing their visitation days was irrelevant and wasn’t his  _ fault.  _ He was a busy man. He had a lot of kids that took priority over Daisuke.

Daisuke didn’t want to be here.

“The foster system must be trippy for a newbie,” Okame said. Daisuke blinked. “What? I can be perceptive, sometimes. You’re the newest to the system, right?”

Daisuke nodded slowly. “I think so. It’s only been four months.”

Okame whistled lowly. “Wow. That  _ sucks. _ No wonder you’re stuck-up.”

“I’m not—”

“It’s fine, it’s fine! I would be, too, if I was fostered when I was  _ seventeen.  _ I mean, I have a bad attitude and I’ve been here since I was four,” Okame said.

“I’ve been here since I was ten,” Yumeko offered. “So I think I remember the transition better than Okame and,” she paused, “I don’t know when Tatsumi was fostered.”

“I don’t, either,” Tatsumi said. “So I was probably young.”

“That’s… super depressing,” Yumeko said as Okame offered a high five to Tatsumi.

“Don’t remember our birth parents squad!”

There was a pause. Tatsumi looked reluctant and more than a little pained, but gave into the high five. Daisuke smiled slightly at the antics, even if it definitely qualified as gallow’s humor.

“Hey, Reika, when were you fostered?” Okame asked.

“I was twelve,” she said. “I reported my mother. It was… the hardest time in my life. I do understand that, Daisuke. No one here is saying that it’s easy, no matter how old you are. In fact, in some ways, being older makes it—”

“I don’t feel it’s necessary.” He crossed his arms. “The fostering. Or therapy.”

Reika nodded calmly, but it was Yumeko that responded.

“I didn’t, either,” she said simply. Her smile looked a little more forced to Daisuke’s eyes as she offered a hand. “Uh… didn’t think anything was wrong until some caseworker showed up at our door squad?”

That drew a rueful smile out of him, and he allowed the high-five.

Not that anything  _ was  _ wrong. His family was fine, and he was fine, and everything would go back to normal soon. He just had to wait it out, attend group therapy, and try not to do anything that would make Mr. Sugiyama  _ concerned. _

Besides, even if he didn’t  _ need  _ therapy, he could still benefit from it. Especially when the alternative was drawing octopi on his paper until there wasn’t any more room. 

He still didn’t participate much throughout the rest of the group, and he was pretty sure everyone noticed, but he did listen. Conversation was still stilted, with Okame’s defensive blitheness, Tatsumi’s apathy, and Yumeko’s honesty that  _ had  _ to be hiding something. But it was easier than last week. He wasn’t sure exactly why.

“Okay. It’s 3:00,” Reika said. “You all did well this week. I look forward to our meeting next Saturday.”

“That makes one of us,” Okame snarked. Daisuke grabbed his phone from the center of the table, instinctively checking his message.

Nothing.

But that was okay.

“Daisuke!” Yumeko called, grabbing his elbow before he could leave and shoving a slip of paper. “Here! That’s my facebook info. Send me a message, if you want. I’d really like to get to know you.”

“Uh…” Daisuke looked over at Tatsumi and Okame. This, he knew, was  _ not  _ how to make friends. Group therapy in general wasn’t a place to—

Okame was grinning. He walked over to them, slinging an arm over Daisuke’s shoulders despite being a few inches shorter than him. 

“I didn’t tell you, Yumeko,” he said. “I got a facebook account. So we can have a group chat!”

“What,” Tatsumi said from behind them.

“I mean, you have a point,” Okame continued. “We’re going to be spending three hours a week with each other. Might as well try being friendly. Don’t expect me to talk much on it, though. Group homes mean I only get computer access at the library.”

“Do I get a choice in this?” Tatsumi asked.

It appeared that Tatsumi didn’t. Daisuke didn’t, either.

That evening, against his better judgment, he redownloaded facebook. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if anyone was wondering 'huh, there seems to be a character missing from these interactions', you were right, and Daisuke was straight-up not having a good time. But he's here now! And now no one gets a choice in leaving the squad!
> 
> (Also, the offer of FF request if you guess Okame's coworkers still stands.)

**Author's Note:**

> Note on the update schedule:  
> I'm writing this out by sessions, so I have all chapters centered around session 1 written up and will thus post them consistently (aiming for 1 a week, give or take). Once I post all of those chapters, I'll start writing chapters for session two. Whenever I finish that, I'll start posting again. That way it's somewhat contained into 'books', and I can write other things as well.
> 
> Also! I have a [ tumblr ](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/jkags-doodles) where I post more things. 
> 
> Please consider dropping a review for encouragment. As an author, I thrive on external validation.


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